Capitalists seem uninterested in capitalism, even as eager entrepreneurs can’t get financing. Businesses and investors sound like the Ancient Mariner, who complained, ‘Water, water everywhere – nor any drop to drink.’ – Clayton Christensen
I have continued systematically to study the Book of Mormon and Bible to understand even more deeply what God expects of me and my family while on this earth. – Clayton Christensen
A sustaining innovation makes better products that you can sell for better profits to your best customers. – Clayton Christensen
There is no evidence that success in business will make us happy people or allow us to have happy families. – Clayton Christensen
If we are to develop profound theory to solve the intractable problems in our societally-critical domains… we must learn to crawl into the life of what makes people tick. – Clayton Christensen
There is no single right answer or path forward, but there is one right way to frame the problem. – Clayton Christensen
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 Christensen
A great book seeks to explain causality, not correlation. It works to point out the circumstances in which it works, and where it doesn’t. And in so doing, it is broadly applicable. – Clayton Christensen
This is why I belong, and why I believe. I commend to all this same search for happiness and for the truth. – Clayton Christensen
Empowering innovations transform something that is complicated and expensive into something that is so much more simple and affordable that a much larger population can enjoy it. – Clayton Christensen
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 Christensen
Management is the opportunity to help people become better people. Practiced that way, it’s a magnificent profession. – Clayton Christensen
There are direct paths to a successful career. But there are plenty of indirect paths, too. So many young people I speak to nowadays think that the only way to get to such a career is by the direct path; but that really only makes sense in certain circumstances. – Clayton Christensen
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 Christensen
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 Christensen
‘Disruption’ is, at its core, a really powerful idea. Everyone hijacks the idea to do whatever they want now. It’s the same way people hijacked the word ‘paradigm’ to justify lame things they’re trying to sell to mankind. – Clayton Christensen
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 Christensen
Colleges would compete by adding professors, enhancing programs, or building nicer facilities. So they competed by making institutions better. – Clayton Christensen
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 Christensen
The principles of disruptive innovation are indeed intended to be guidelines to assist managers both in introducing disruptive innovations as well as identifying disruptive developments in their market. – Clayton Christensen
Because we employ no professional preachers, it means that every sermon or lesson in church is given by a regular member – women and men, children and grandparents. – Clayton Christensen
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 Christensen
We all have jobs in our lives that we must get done. We reach out and bring products into our lives to get these jobs done. Marketing is all about asking, ‘What job is the customer trying to accomplish?’ – Clayton Christensen
Efficiency innovations provide return on investment in 12-18 months. Empowering innovations take 5-10 years to yield a return. We have ample capital – oceans of capital – that is being reinvested into efficiency innovation. – Clayton Christensen
Diabetes is a great example whereby, giving the patient the tools, you can manage yourself very well. – Clayton Christensen
The path I am trying so hard to follow is in fact the one that God my Father and His Son Jesus Christ want me to pursue. It has brought me deep happiness. – Clayton Christensen
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 Christensen
Christine and I haven’t raised our children. A whole community of selfless Christians has contributed to helping them become faithful, competent adults. – Clayton Christensen
Efficiency innovations are a natural part of the economic cycle, but these are the innovations that streamline process and actually reduce the number of available jobs. – Clayton Christensen