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32 Spectacular Clayton M. Christensen Quotes

Clayton M. Christensen is an American scholar and educator best known for his book, ‘The Innovator’s Dilemma.’ Serving as a Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at Harvard, Christensen is mostly associated with his study of innovation inn commercial enterprises and performs management consulting at Innosight. Here is a look at some of the most notable Clayton M. Christensen quotes ever documented.

“As I look back on my own life, I recognize that some of the greatest gifts I received from my parents stemmed not from what they did for me—but rather from what they didn’t do for me.”

“Because if the decisions you make about where you invest your blood, sweat, and tears are not consistent with the person you aspire to be, you’ll never become that person.”

“Decide what you stand for. And then stand for it all the time.”

“Disruptive technologies typically enable new markets to emerge.”

“Disruptive technology should be framed as a marketing challenge, not a technological one.”

“I don’t view it as mystic. I believe that God is our father. He created us. He is powerful because he knows everything. Therefore everything I learn that is true makes me more like my father in heaven”

“I had thought the destination was what was important, but it turned out it was the journey.”

“If you defer investing your time and energy until you see that you need to, chances are it will already be too late.”

“In contrast, investing time and energy in your relationship with your spouse and children typically doesn’t offer that same immediate sense of achievement.”

“In fact, how you allocate your own resources can make your life turn out to be exactly as you hope or very different from what you intend.”

“In order to really find happiness, you need to continue looking for opportunities that you believe are meaningful, in which you will be able to learn new things, to succeed, and be given more and more responsibility to shoulder.”

“In our lives and in our careers, whether we are aware of it or not, we are constantly navigating a path by deciding between our deliberate strategies and the unanticipated alternatives that emerge.”

“In your life, there are going to be constant demands for your time and attention. How are you going to decide which of those demands gets resources?”

“Intimate, loving, and enduring relationships with our family and close friends will be among the sources of the deepest joy in our lives.”

“It’s easier to hold your principles 100 percent of the time than it is to hold them 98 percent of the time.”

“Justification for infidelity and dishonesty in all their manifestations lies in the marginal cost economics of just this once.”

“Motivation is the catalyzing ingredient for every successful innovation. The same is true for learning.”

“One quarter of Medicare beneficiaries have five or more chronic conditions, sees an average of 13 physicians each year, and fills 50 prescriptions per year.”

“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.”

“Resources are what he uses to do it, processes are how he does it, and priorities are why he does it.”

“The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas.”

“The only metrics that will truly matter to my life are the individuals whom I have been able to help, one by one, to become better people.”

“The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking.”

“The techniques that worked so extraordinarily well when applied to sustaining technologies, however, clearly failed badly when applied to markets or applications that did not yet exist.”

“There are more than 9,000 billing codes for individual procedures and units of care. But there is not a single billing code for patient adherence or improvement, or for helping patients stay well.”

“These are the reasons why great firms stumbled or failed when confronted with disruptive technological change.”

“This is one of the innovator’s dilemmas: Blindly following the maxim that good managers should keep close to their customers can sometimes be a fatal mistake.”

“When I have my interview with my God, our conversation will focus on the individuals whose self-esteem I was able to strengthen, whose faith I was able to reinforce, and whose discomfort I was able to assuage—a doer of good, regardless of what assignment I had.”

“When science seems to contradict religion, then one, the other, or both are wrong, or incomplete. Truth is not incompatible with itself.”

“You are in a position where you have eight or ten hours every day from every person who works for you.”

“You can talk all you want about having a clear purpose and strategy for your life, but ultimately this means nothing if you are not investing the resources you have in a way that is consistent with your strategy.”

“You perfect results. What I can promise you is that you won’t get it right if you don’t commit to keep trying.”

Here is a Ted Tall that Clay Christensen appeared at in Boston focused on answering the question of how you will measure your life? While many measure success based on the progress of there careers, here are some other important points to think about.

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