Quotes by Clayton M. Christensen - Page 3

I think this is one reason why the Lord invented the Internet - so members can teach one another how to succeed in assignments the Lord has given us, and to give us opportunities to inspire and bear testimony in a horizontal way.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Assignments
Horizontal
Inspire
Lord
Succeed
Testimony
Bear
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Efficiency innovations arise in industries that already exist. They provide existing goods and services at much lower costs. They are not empowering. Efficiency innovators become the low cost providers within an existing framework.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Arise
Cost
Efficiency
Empowering
Framework
Goods
Innovators
Providers
Existing
Industries
Innovations
Low
Services
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People have an idol they want to be like and try to follow what the idols did. But when you do, you find out you're not very successful and you're not very happy. You try to copy these models, and it doesn't yield successful results.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Idols
Models
Yield
People Find Try
Copy
Idol
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If you make that decision, that you'll always follow that rule, then your commitment to do it sinks into your heart, and when you realize the benefits of having integrity time after time, it really changes your heart, not just your head.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Benefits
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Every city and town in America would be bankrupt if they kept their books the way private-sector companies keep their books - because of the obligation cities and towns have taken upon themselves to provide health care for their retirees.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Cities
Health Care
Obligation
Taken
Towns
Companies
Provide
Retirees
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To focus capital and entrepreneurship into empowering innovation, we should change is the capital gains tax rate. We would be better served by a regressive tax rate, that would become progressively smaller the longer the investment is held.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Capital Gains
Empowering
Entrepreneurship
Focus
Gains
Innovation
Investment
Rate
Tax
Capital
Held
Longer
Served
Smaller
Tax Rate
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The reason why it is so difficult for existing firms to capitalize on disruptive innovations is that their processes and their business model that make them good at the existing business actually make them bad at competing for the disruption.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Competing
Disruption
Disruptive
Business Model
Capitalize
Existing
Model
Business Good Bad
Innovations
Processes
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Eighty percent of the cases used in the typical MBA program are about successful companies. Students graduate with this notion that 'If I do everything that the people in those cases did, then my organization will grow and be successful, too.'
Clayton M. Christensen /
Cases
Eighty
Notion
Program
Typical
Grow People Will
Graduate
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For online universities, like Liverpool and the University of Phoenix, if prices drop by 60%, they still make money. But for the vast majority of traditional universities, if the prices fall by 10%, they are bankrupt; they have no wriggle room.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Liverpool
Majority
Online
Phoenix
Traditional
Vast
Drop
Prices
Universities
Vast Majority
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Relative to the taxi industry, Uber is a sustaining innovation; that is, it makes customers' lives better. Uber targeted mainstream markets with a better service for existing customers, and it succeeded in serving them better than the incumbents.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Innovation
Mainstream
Relative
Serving
Sustaining
Taxi
Uber
Existing
Succeeded
Targeted
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Growth makes management easier. In particular, it makes making labor concessions seem easy. It's when growth stops because you're being disrupted that managing becomes really, really hard, and as a result, most disrupted companies simply disappear.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Disappear
Labor
Management
Disrupted
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Management is getting people together to figure out how to transform inputs into outputs. In the process of figuring out the process of how people work together, you've got to figure out who's got what responsibilities, and how do they work together.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Input
Management
Figuring
Responsibilities
Transform
Work Together
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There are a lot of companies - not just Sony and Kodak - that have spent a lot of money trying to make the quality of the digital images comparable with film. But when you're sending these things over the Internet, they don't have to be high quality.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Digital
Sony
Comparable
Images
Sending
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As a general rule, if you have a product that doesn't get the job done that a customer is needing to get done, then often you have to offer it for zero. Because if you ask for money for it - because if it doesn't do the job well, they won't pay for it.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Zero
Pay
Ask
General
Customer
General Rule
Needing
Product
Rule
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Empowering innovations require long-term investments, which tie up capital for years and years. So companies are using capital to create more capital, and consequently, the world is awash in capital, but the innovations we need to advance aren't there.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Empowering
Long Term
Advance
Capital
Consequently
Innovations
Require
Tie
Years And Years
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The world is a nested space, and so we have our brain as a person, and people are members of teams, and teams are part of business units, and business units are parts of corporations, and corporations are part of industries, which are part of economies.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Brain
Corporations
Members
Units
Economies
Industries
Parts
Teams
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From my first year on the faculty, there was always so much more I wanted to impart to the students. I decided that, rather than waste the last day of class summarizing the semester, I'd spend my time talking about what I'd learned in life that was useful.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Faculty
Impart
My Time
Semester
Waste
Life Time Always
Life Time Day
Useful
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Disruption is continuously afoot in every industry, but especially in autos. It is how Toyota, Nissan and Honda bloodied Detroit: They did not start their attack with Lexus, Infiniti and Acura, but with low-end subcompact models branded Corona, Datsun and CVCC.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Branded
Detroit
Disruption
Honda
Models
Toyota
Attack
Continuously
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India's prosperity is sectioned by geography, such as in Bangalore, where the information technology industry is prominent. Because they have a conduit out of India, competing in the world by the Internet, it's not regulated in corrupt ways, and it is very prosperous.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Technology
Competing
Geography
Industry
Information
Information Technology
Internet
Prominent
World Internet Information
Technology World Internet
Corrupt
Conduit
Ways
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People in private equity complain that they have so much capital and so few places to invest. But you have lots of entrepreneurs trying to raise money at the low end and find that they can't get funding because of this mismatch. I think that there is an opportunity there.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Funding
Money Opportunity People
Capital
Invest
Entrepreneurs
Low
Raise
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During the early stages of an industry, when the functionality and reliability of a product isn't yet adequate to meet customer's needs, a proprietary solution is almost always the right solution - because it allows you to knit all the pieces together in an optimized way.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Adequate
Functionality
Reliability
Customer
Proprietary
Solution
Stages
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In the scriptures, we are told you can't really understand happiness unless you understand sadness. You don't know pleasure if you don't know pain. It's part of life. So can you learn something from somebody who has gone from success to success to success? I don't think so.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Sadness
Life Happiness Success
Scriptures
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Many think of management as cutting deals and laying people off and hiring people and buying and selling companies. That's not management, that's deal making. Management is the opportunity to help people become better people. Practiced that way, it's a magnificent profession.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Opportunity
Buying
Cutting
Hiring
Magnificent
Management
Profession
Selling
Better People Way
Companies
Deal
Help People
Laying
Practiced
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Finding a 'sacrificial lamb' on whom to tag blame for complicated problems is an important instrument in the toolkit of politicians, because it deflects blame for the nation's economic woes away from their own regulatory lapses, economic mismanagement and coddling to labor unions.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Blame
Complicated
Economic
Labor
Mismanagement
Tag
Unions
Nation
Politicians
Finding
Instrument
Problems
Regulatory
Sacrificial
Whom
Woes
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Many of the factors that we think will cause motivation, such as fair pay and a good manager, won't make you love your job. Even if you eliminate what makes you dissatisfied, that doesn't make you motivated. It doesn't make your work rewarding. You just are less bothered by things.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Bothered
Dissatisfied
Factors
Good Manager
Motivated
Love Work Good
Eliminate
Manager
Rewarding
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I talk to our kids now that they are grown up, and I ask them about the experiences that had growing up that really had a powerful influence on the way they view the purpose of life. The experiences that really shaped their values - my wife and I have no memory of those experiences!
Clayton M. Christensen /
No Memory
Grown
Memory
Shaped
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I love my life as a missionary, keeping myself on the front lines. The image in my mind is that God, my general, stands at the door when I go out every morning; and, knowing what the war is like, day after day he gives me his most powerful weapon: his Spirit. For this I am grateful.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Grateful
Lines
Missionary
Most Powerful
Powerful
Life Love God
General
Life Love War
Door
Front
Front Lines
Gives
Image
Weapon
Powerful Weapon
Stands
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I promise my students that if they take the time to figure out their life purpose, they'll look back on it as the most important thing they discovered while at school. If they don't figure it out, they will just sail off without a rudder and get buffeted in the very rough seas of life.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Promise
Rough
Sail
Life Time Look
Important Thing
Most Important Thing
Rudder
Seas
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We have found that companies need to speak a common language because some of the suggested ways to harness disruptive innovation are seemingly counterintuitive. If companies don't have that common language, it is hard for them to come to consensus on a counterintuitive course of action.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Common Language
Consensus
Disruptive
Harness
Innovation
Seemingly
Suggested
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In our personal lives, we have a lot of businesses going on. I have a profession, I'm a father, a spouse, a good member of my community. How much of my time and energy can I allocate to each of those things? What I allocate becomes the strategy I have for my family, and everything else.
Clayton M. Christensen /
My Time
Profession
Spouse
Strategy
Time Family Good
Allocate
Businesses
Everything Else
Family Time Good
Member
Personal Lives
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The whole enterprise of teaching managers is steeped in the ethic of data-driven analytical support. The problem is, the data is only available about the past. So the way we've taught managers to make decisions and consultants to analyze problems condemns them to taking action when it's too late.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Available
Consultants
Data
Enterprise
Managers
Too Late
Analytical
Condemns
Ethic
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In the universities, we teach you what we decide you need to know. And the employers find out when they hire people that students didn't learn what we needed them to learn. Online learning offerings, like the University of Phoenix, have relationships with employers and teach what you need to know.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Employers
Phoenix
Hire
Universities
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The first two lessons, which we learned early in our efforts to be good member missionaries, have made sharing the Gospel much easier: We simply can't predict who will or won't be interested in the Gospel, and building a friendship is not a prerequisite to inviting people to learn about the Gospel.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Friendship
Inviting
Lessons
Good People Will
Predict
Gospel
Efforts
Member
Missionaries
Sharing
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The Republicans are wrong in thinking that the rich create jobs. In reality, many of the richest Americans have been investing in efficiency innovations rather than to create jobs. And the Democrats are wrong, because growth won't happen if they distribute the wealth of the wealthy to everyone else.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Investing
Wealth
Democrats
Distribute
Everyone Else
Republicans
Innovations
Richest
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Funding that is focused on the ability to diagnose diseases precisely will just have inestimable value because that's the gate through which precision medicine has to go. Unless you can diagnose the disease precisely, care has to remain in the hands of expensive institutions and expensive caregivers.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Disease
Expensive
Focused
Funding
Medicine
Gate
Inestimable
Precisely
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There just isn't anything more invigorating than to read an article or hear about an entrepreneur using the term 'disruptive technology' that makes no reference to me as the source. When it's clear they really got the idea and they use it as if it were in everyday parlance, that's the ultimate triumph.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Disruptive
Entrepreneur
Everyday
Invigorating
Term
Triumph
Ultimate
Article
Reference
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Holiday Inn comes in at the bottom of the market, but they can't go upmarket except if they emulate the Four Seasons. So they can go up, but they have to emulate the people they're trying to compete against. They can't disrupt them, because there isn't anything about their model that is extendable upmarket.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Bottom
Emulate
Holiday
Seasons
Compete
Disrupt
Inn
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I helped start a ceramics company called CPS Technologies. We took it public in 1987 at $12 a share. Three months later, there was this horrible cliff: Black Monday. Fidelity had bought 15 percent of our stock, and their algorithm caused them to dump it all onto the market that day. We dropped from $12 to $2.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Fidelity
Horrible
Monday
Caused
Algorithm
Bought
Cliff
Dropped
Onto
Stock
Technologies
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What's unique about the Mormon Church is that it encourages inquiry. I really do think my research and religion are all on the same page. I never could have come up with the notion of disruptive innovations, which went against a lot of conventional wisdom, if I hadn't been raised to always be asking questions.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Asking Questions
Conventional
Conventional Wisdom
Disruptive
Inquiry
Notion
Encourages
Innovations
Mormon
Page
Same Page
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There are companies trying to build business within Saudi Arabia, and what they find is that if they try to bring on locals and teach them how to become senior executives, they just don't show up to work. They are not predictable as to when they'll come in and how much of their hearts are into that opportunity.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Arabia
Executives
Predictable
Saudi Arabia
Senior
Work Business Opportunity
Hearts
Saudi
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The financial doctrines so zealously followed by American companies might help optimize capital when it is scarce. But capital is abundant. If we are to see our economy really grow, we need to encourage migratory capital to become productive capital - capital invested for the long-term in empowering innovations.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Empowering
Long Term
Scarce
Abundant
American Companies
Capital
Doctrines
Followed
Innovations
Invested
Optimize
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Companies, in fact, are specifically organized to under-invest in disruptive innovations! This is one reason why we often suggest that companies set up separate teams or groups to commercialize disruptive innovations. When disruptive innovations have to fight with other innovations for resources, they tend to lose out.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Disruptive
Groups
Organized
Resources
Innovations
Specifically
Suggest
Teams
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Managers are already voracious consumers of theory. Every time they make a decision or take action, it's based on some theory that leads them to believe that action will lead to the right result. The problem is, most managers aren't aware of the theories they're using, and they often use the wrong theories for the situation.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Managers
Theory
Leads
Voracious
Theories
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I don't have my finger on the pulse of corruption in China, but I think most people on the ground would say that as China was emerging from communism, it was a very regulated society, and therefore, it was very corrupt. But as they have deregulated the economy, there just aren't as many opportunities for people to be corrupt.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Communism
Emerging
Pulse
Corrupt
Deregulated
Finger
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I don't feel that this concept of disruptive technology is the solution for everybody. But I think it's very important for innovators to understand what we've learned about established companies' motivation to target obvious profitable markets - and about their inability to find emerging ones. The evidence is just overwhelming.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Disruptive
Emerging
Inability
Innovators
Obvious
Overwhelming
Profitable
Target
Established
Concept
Solution
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The iPod is a proprietary integrated product, although that is becoming quite modular. You can download your music from Amazon as easily as you can from iTunes. You also see modularity organized around the Android operating system that is growing much faster than the iPhone. So I worry that modularity will do its work on Apple.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Faster
Integrated
Iphone
Itunes
Organized
Work Music Your
Android
Apple
Download
Operating
Operating System
Proprietary
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If you understand cause and effect, it brings about a set of insights that leads you to a very different place. The knowledge will persuade you that the market isn't organized by customer category or by product category. If you understand the job that consumers need to complete, you can articulate all of the experiences in that job.
Clayton M. Christensen /
Different Place
Organized
Category
Articulate
Brings
Customer
Insights
Leads
Persuade
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Clayton M. Christensen Quotes - Page 3

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