Quote

But actually theory is very practical. Gravity is a theory, for example. It allows you to predict that if you step off a cliff you will fall you don't have to collect data on that.

Clayton Christensen

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Clayton Christensen
Age: 67 †
Born: 1952
Born: April 6
Died: 2020
Died: January 23
Economist
Missionary
Priest
Professor
University Teacher
Writer
Salt Lake City
Utah
Clayton Magleby Christensen
Example
Gravity
Actually
Practicals
Fall
Practical
Allows
Data
Cliff
Step
Cliffs
Theory
Collect
Steps
Predict

More quotes by Clayton Christensen

Image
I have been blessed to see visions of eternity and events in my future that have been important for me to foresee, have been revealed to me.
Clayton Christensen
Image
The transformation at the corporate level was achieved by selling off business units in old markets and by creating new business units to pursue the new opportunities. But the individual business units themselves within those transformed corporations were almost inert to change.
Clayton Christensen
Image
People still cling to this belief that innovation is just random and unpredictable. But if you look closely, there are some real patterns. The companies that recognize and take advantage of those patterns have the real opportunity to create competitive advantage.
Clayton Christensen
Image
Only the general manager can mold the resources, processes, and values that affect innovation , into a coherent capability to develop and launch superior new products and services repeatedly.
Clayton Christensen
Image
The outsourcing gurus have been driving the theory, and they are saying everybody ought always to do this. But it is really contingent on where you are on the spectrum from not good enough to more than good enough, relative to each tier of the market.
Clayton Christensen
Image
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.
Clayton Christensen
Image
Because of the disruption phenomenon - technological progress outstripping the ability of customers to utilize it - the general tendency is for the money to migrate toward the subsystems.
Clayton Christensen
Image
Its actually really important that you succeed at what youre succeeding at, but that isnt going to be the measure of your life.
Clayton Christensen
Image
Steve Jobs and Apple taught us that profit is not the ultimate goal, but rather a consequence of something greater.
Clayton Christensen
Image
Management has to provide the coordinating mechanism between what the supplier provides and what the user needs in not-good-enough situations where product architecture is consequently interdependent. Management always beats markets when there is not sufficient information.
Clayton Christensen
Image
The only useful information about the market will be what I create through expeditions into the market, through testing and probing, trial and error, by selling real products to real people who pay real money.
Clayton Christensen
Image
In the study of management, unfortunately, many writers have been so anxious to articulate a theory in the form of, If you do this, this will result, that they never go through this careful effort.
Clayton Christensen
Image
Whenever we have thanked these men and women for what they have done for us, without exception they have expressed gratitude for having the chance to help - because they grew as they served.
Clayton Christensen
Image
We have found that companies need to speak a common language, because some of the suggested ways to harness disruptive innovation are seemingly counter-intuitive. If companies don't have that common language, it is hard for them to come to consensus on a counter-intuitive course of action.
Clayton Christensen
Image
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
Image
Regulatory fiat cannot create a market at a technologically interdependent interface. And by the same token, regulation and so-called monopoly power rarely prevail at modular interfaces between stages of value-added technology.
Clayton Christensen
Image
Questions are places in your mind where answers fit. If you haven't asked the question, the answer has nowhere to go. It hits your mind and bounces right off. You have to ask the question - you have to want to know - in order to open up the space for the answer to fit.
Clayton Christensen
Image
Capitalism has taught us that markets are always more efficient than hierarchical managerial coordination. But in a situation where those three conditions aren't met, I can't outsource or partner with you because markets don't function in the absence of sufficient information.
Clayton Christensen
Image
I've concluded that the metric by which God will assess my life isn't dollars, but the individual people whose lives I've touched. I think that's the way it will work for us all. Don't worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved worry about the individuals you have helped become better people.
Clayton Christensen
Image
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 weve taught managers to make decisions and consultants to analyze problems condemns them to taking action when its too late.
Clayton Christensen