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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

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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
Actually
Practicals
Fall
Practical
Allows
Data
Cliff
Step
Cliffs
Theory
Collect
Steps
Predict
Example
Gravity

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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.
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There needs to be conviction and action behind rules.
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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.
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An innovation will get traction only if it helps people get something that they're already doing in their lives done better.
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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.
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How can you make sense of the future when you only have data about the past?
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Disruptive innovations create jobs, efficiency innovations destroy them.
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Focus is scary—until you realize that it only means turning your back on markets you could never have anyway. Sharp focus on jobs that customers are trying to get done holds the promise of greatly improving the odds of success in new-product development.
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Disruption is, at its core, a really powerful idea, but everyone hijacks the idea to do whatever they want now.
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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.
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Management is the most noble of professions if it's practiced well.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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You can't find returns in investments you haven't made.
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If a company truly wants to resolve the innovator's dilemma, it does need to be able to create wave after wave of disruptive innovation. And those disruptive innovations will typically grow to the point where they do cause some pain for leading companies. But most disruptive innovations create substantial new growth before they cause that pain.
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Motivation is the catalyzing ingredient for every successful innovation. The same is true for learning.
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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.
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History is littered with great firms that got killed by disruption. Of course, the personal computer, a technology that first took root as a toy, got Digital Equipment Corporation. Kodak missed the boat for a long time on digital imaging. Sony was slow to get MP3 technology. Microsoft doesn't know what to do with open source software. And so on.
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There's usually some process by which a potentially great idea gets prostituted into something lacklustre, or by which the wrong idea gets put forward.
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