Quotes from Clayton M. Christensen

One of the most common versions of this mistake that high-potential young professionals make is believing that investments in life can be sequenced.

if our ward and stake leaders were to focus on leading their members to share the gospel, many of the other problems that fester in our hearts and homes, and in our wards and stakes, would resolve themselves through the blessings that come from accepting the call that God has given each of us to be missionaries.

We should always remember that beyond a certain point, hygiene factors such as money, status, compensation, and job security are much more a by-product of being happy with a job rather than the cause of it.

The trap many people fall into is to allocate their time to whoever screams loudest, and their talent to whatever offers them the fastest reward. That's a dangerous way to build a strategy.

But instead of telling him what to think, I taught him how to think. He then reached a bold decision about what to do, on his own.

When my invitation centered on how the Church would interest them, Tom wasn't interested. But when I asked for help, Tom said, "Sure." He and his wife have become wonderful members of our ward.

At a more serious level, the desirability of aligning our actions with the more powerful laws of nature, society, and psychology, in order to lead a productive life, is a central theme in many works, particularly the ancient Chinese classic, Tao te Ching.

Innovation is less about producing something new and more about enabling something new and important for customers.

A good theory doesn't change its mind: it doesn't apply only to some companies or people, and not to others. It is a general statement of what causes what, and why.

Data has an annoying way of conforming itself to support whatever point of view we want it to support.

Self-esteem—the sense that "I'm not afraid to confront this problem and I think I can solve it"—doesn't come from abundant resources.

Figure I.1 The Impact of Sustaining and Disruptive Technological Change

hedonic regression analysis to identify how markets valued individual attributes and how those attribute values changed over time.

Ojomo, "Obsession with ending poverty is where development is going wrong," Guardian, February 8, 2017

hedonic regression analysis expresses the total price of a product as the sum of individual so-called shadow prices (some positive, others negative) that the market places on each of the product's characteristics

When people ask me something, I now rarely answer directly.

There had, therefore, to be a reason why good managers consistently made wrong decisions when faced with disruptive technological change.

Hygiene factors are things like status, compensation, job security, work conditions, company policies, and supervisory practices. It

Organizations typically structure themselves around function or business unit or geography—but successful growth companies optimize around the job.

understand and harness the principles of disruptive innovation.

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.

If you get motivators at work, Herzberg's theory suggests, you're going to love your job—even if you're not making piles of money. You're going to be motivated.

But do you know what? Gravity doesn't care! It will always pull things down, and I may as well plan on it.

the innovator's dilemma: Should we invest to protect the least profitable end of our business, so that we can retain our least loyal, most price-sensitive customers? Or should we invest to strengthen our position in the most profitable tiers of our business, with customers who reward us with premium prices for better products?