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| Professor Clay Christensen pausing to emphasize a point to AMP 182 participants |
Professor Clay Christensen
Professor Clayton Christensen is the author of Innovators Dilemma, where he first articulated the frameworks on disruptive innovation. His book received the Global Business Book Award for the Best Business Book of the Year in 1997 and was a New York Times bestseller. It has been translated into over 10 languages, and is sold in over 25 countries. A prolific and influential writer, he has authored 6 books. His forthcoming book, "How Will You Measure Your Life?" is generating overwhelmingly positive reviews and has been dubbed one of the 12 most anticipated books of 2012.
Managing the Creation of Growth Businesses
Professor Christensen talked briefly about the power of disruptive innovation and its ability to reinvent an industry or a business and create even greater value. He used the example of how production outsourcing and competitive creep in the steel industry set in motion disruptive business model liquidation.
Throughout his lecture he touched on a couple of points that are worth repeating:
- The right product architecture depends upon the basis of competition
- Business models are built through interactions of the value proposition, resources, profit formula and processes
- Too much focus on product categories lead to feature proliferation and therefore undifferentiable products, whereas the appropriate focus on a job defines the correct mode of integration
Leadership Values
A deeply spiritual man, Professor Christensen concluded his session with pointers on what I christened, leadership values. These are:
- It is easier to hold your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold on to them 98% of the time
- People who lack self-esteem put others down, in order to feel good about themselves
- God will assess my life not with the dollars I've created, but with the individuals I've touched
As a sidelight, it is very curious to note that for this particular week, several professors have skewed their class discussions toward values and leadership. I suppose it's a testament to Harvard Business School's thrust at providing the Advanced Management Program (AMP) participants not just the value frameworks but also a solid ethical base from which to grow this value.
This is perhaps also reflective of the educational system's attempt at soul-searching after witnessing the most disruptive of economic declines in close to 100 years.
