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Clayton Christensen

Clayton Christensen Quotes

Professor

Clayton M. Christensen is an esteemed professor known for his contributions to the fields of business management and innovation. Born on April 6, 1952, he is a professor at Harvard Business School and the author of 'The Innovator's Dilemma'.

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Famous Clayton Christensen Quotes

“It is a company's customers who effectively control what it can and cannot do.”

Company Customers

Book:Disruptive Innovation: The Christensen Collection (The Innovator's Dilemma, The Innovator's Solution, The Innovator's DNA, and Harvard Business Review article

Source: Disruptive Innovation: The Christensen Collection (The Innovator's Dilemma, The Innovator's Solution, The Innovator's DNA, and Harvard Business Review article

“In my first career I had founded my own company, with a group of MIT professors, before coming to Harvard to finish my doctorate, and so I had a deep respect for the brains, talent, and dedication of managers. That made it hard for me to believe the attributions in the business press that stupid management was to blame. So I looked elsewhere for an explanation.”

“Often they [writers on the study of management] have a point of view based upon intuition and experience. They then offer a cadence of two-paragraph examples carefully selected to "prove" their theory, and then they write "one size fits all" books. The message is, "If you'd do what these companies did, you'd be successful too."”

“If you ask the average guy on the street to name five companies that have truly transformed themselves over the few decades, Hewlett-Packard would be on everybody's list. You'd also put on this list GE and Johnson & Johnson.”

Ifs Would Be Guy Asks Names Company Five Streets Average Decades Lists Transformed Johnson

Author:Clayton Christensen

“To prop up the stock price, managers have to turn down the screws on everybody. That forces them to cancel all the projects that would lead to future growth in order to drop money to the bottom line. This is HP's dilemma today. Once a company's growth has stopped, the game as we have known it is over. It's a scary thing.”

Today Order Turns Games Force Growth Lines Company Known Projects Bottom Scary Managers Over It Screws Bottom Line Dilemma Props Scary Things Stock Price Future Growth

Author:Clayton Christensen

“When the functionality of a product or service overshoots what customers can use, it changes the way companies have to compete. When the product isn't yet good enough, the way you compete is by making better products. In order to make better products, the architecture of the product has to be interdependent and proprietary in character.”

Way Enough Character Use Order Company Products Customers Architecture Good Enough Functionality

Author:Clayton Christensen

“If the technology is disruptive, on the other hand, the odds are that at the end of the transition, the leaders will have been toppled and new companies will be on top.”

Ifs Has Beens Ends Hands Company Leader Technology Transition Odds Disruptive New Company

Author:Clayton Christensen

“In most instances, biotechnology, though a radically different approach, is a sustaining technology: It's a dramatically improved way of targeting problems that we hadn't been able to solve with the conventional approach of mainstream pharmaceutical companies.”

Way Different Problem Able Company Technology Approach Solve Instance Mainstream Conventional Sustaining Pharmaceutical Different Approach Biotechnology Pharmaceutical Companies

Author:Clayton Christensen

“Another thing I've observed is how critical the role of the CEO is when a technology truly is disruptive. In looking back on companies that have successfully launched independent disruptive business units, the CEO always had a foot in both camps. Never have they succeeded when they spin something off in order to get it off the CEO's agenda. The CEOs that did this had extraordinary personal self-confidence, and almost always they were the founders of the companies.”

Self Order Company Roles Technology Feet Independent Extraordinary Critical Self Confidence Agendas Camps Founders Looking Back Units Ceo Disruptive

Author:Clayton Christensen

“In a large successful company where your power base as CEO isn't all that secure, it's hard for a CEO to pursue a truly disruptive strategy.”

Hard Company Successful Strategy Pursue Secure Ceo Disruptive Successful Company

Author:Clayton Christensen

“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.”

People Thinking Way Helping Opportunity Deals Company Cutting Management Profession Selling Buying Magnificent Hiring Buying And Selling

Author:Clayton Christensen