Quotes from Clayton M. Christensen

Indeed, while experiences and information can be good teachers, there are many times in life where we simply cannot afford to learn on the job. You don't want to have to go through multiple marriages to learn how to be a good spouse.

Much of the ability to create and maintain valuable brands, as a consequence, has migrated away from the product and to the channel because, for the present, it is the channel that addresses the piece of added value that is not yet good enough.

I will be successful and happy in my career? My relationships with my spouse, my children, and my extended family and close friends become an enduring source of happiness? I live a life of integrity—and stay out of jail?

Our default instincts are so often just to support our children in a difficult moment. But if our children don't face difficult challenges, and sometimes fail along the way, they will not build the resilience they will need throughout their lives. People who hit their first significant career roadblock after years of nonstop achievement often fall apart.

As such, while senior managers may think they're making the resource allocation decisions, many of the really critical resource allocation decisions have actually been made long before senior management gets involved: Middle managers have made their decisions about which projects they'll back and carry to senior management—and which they will allow to languish.

When managers assign employees to tackle a critical innovation, they instinctively work to match the requirements of the job with the capabilities of the individuals whom they charge to do it.

Interestingly, even though MinuteClinic employs no doctors in its clinics, it has never been sued for malpractice. The reason is that malpractice lawsuits arise primarily in cases of mis-diagnosis and flawed therapeutic judgment.16 Because MinuteClinic practices in the realm of precision medicine, its diagnoses are precise and its therapies predictably effective.

once the performance level demanded of a particular attribute has been achieved, customers indicate their satiation by being less willing to pay a premium price for continued improvement in that attribute.

products offering competitively superior shock resistance and mean time between failure (MTBF) were accorded a significant price premium, compared to competitive offerings.

managers may think they control the flow of resources in their firms, in the end it is really customers and investors who dictate how money will be spent because companies with investment patterns that don't satisfy their customers and investors don't survive.

Indeed, while experiences and information can be good teachers, there are many times in life where we simply cannot afford to learn on the job. You don't want to have to go through multiple marriages to learn how to be a good spouse. Or wait until your last child has grown to master parenthood. This is why theory can be so valuable: it can explain what will happen, even before you experience

But just as was true in understanding flight, problems in our lives don't always map neatly to theories on a one-to-one basis.

Make no mistake: a culture happens, whether you want it to or not. The only question is how hard you are going to try to influence it.

Innovators were simply much more likely to question, observe, network, and experiment compared to typical executives. We published the results of our research in Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal

Probably the most daunting challenge in delivering growth is that if you fail once to deliver it, the odds that you ever will be able to deliver in the future are very low.

Denying children the opportunity to develop their processes is not the only way outsourcing has damaged their capabilities, either. There is something far more important at risk when we outsource too much of our lives: our values.

Experts' forecasts will always be wrong. It is simply impossible to predict with any useful degree of precision how disruptive products will be used or how large their markets will be. An important corollary is that, because markets for disruptive technologies are unpredictable, companies' initial strategies for entering these markets will generally be wrong.

Motivation factors include challenging work, recognition, responsibility, and personal growth. Feelings that you are making a meaningful contribution to work arise from intrinsic conditions of the work itself. Motivation is much less about external prodding or stimulation, and much more about what's inside of you, and inside of your work.

If you need a machine and don't buy it, then you will ultimately find that you have paid for it and don't have it.

anticipated opportunities—the opportunities that you can see and choose to pursue. In Honda's case, it was the big-bike market in the United States. When you put in place a plan focused on these anticipated opportunities, you are pursuing a deliberate strategy.

even if you're doing it with the best of intentions, if you find yourself heading down a path of outsourcing more and more of your role as a parent, you will lose more and more of the precious opportunities to help your kids develop their values—which may be the most important capability of all.

The leading firms in the established technology remain financially strong until the disruptive technology is, in fact, in the midst of their mainstream market.

The second source of options is unanticipated—usually a cocktail of problems and opportunities that emerges while you are trying to implement the deliberate plan or strategy that you have decided upon. At Honda, what was unanticipated were the problems with the big bikes, the costs associated with fixing them, and the opportunity to sell the little Super Cub motorbikes.

In fact, the prospects for growth and improved profitability in upmarket value networks often appear to be so much more attractive than the prospect of staying within the current value network, that it is not unusual to see well-managed companies leaving (or becoming uncompetitive with) their original customers as they search for customers at higher price points.