How will you measure your life? Finding fulfillment using lessons from some of the world's greatest businesses By Clayton M Christensen, James Allworth & Karen Dillion
It is a small book but worth the read many times.
This book is an eclectic one– a dose of management, bit of philosophy
and a theory driven prediction all thrown in for a good measure. Main author,
Harvard Business School Prof Clayton M Christensen had a brush with mortality [1]and
hence his life lessons are firsthand experience which makes it really
compelling. Also, as a writer he is a very accomplished author. His books Innovator dilemma and Innovator’s solution are well known classics.
His Harvard Business Review articles have won McKinsey award many times.
Prof Clay advocates to develop “theory” which in turn can
predict, so much so, he distills that thought “I don’t have an opinion but my theory has”. In the chapter which is
attractively titled as “Just because you have feathers”, he observes that,
there is a strong correlation between able to fly and having feathers and wings
– what the would-be believed that allowed the birds to soar. But, the would-be
aviators didn't understand the causal mechanisms – what actually causes
something to fly? They could have seen some warning signs: Ostriches have wings
and feathers but they can’t fly: Bats have wings but no feathers but they are
great fliers and flying squirrels have neither wings nor feather but they get
by. The real breakthrough came later when the concept of lift was explained by
the Dutch mathematician David Bernoulli. So author claims, from then on we
moved from correlation to causation thereby making giant strides in aviation.
Fair enough. But, I have a trouble in subscribing to it fully. We are in an era
where correlation would often over power the causation. For very complex
systems, the causation factors are so many it is nearly impossible to develop a
theory or formula to make a robust prediction. Surprisingly, correlation proves
good enough in most cases in this ephemeral world.
Saint Augustine articulated long back that, total abstinence
is easier than perfect moderation. Clay echoes similar approach when it comes
to adhering to one’s beliefs/values – don’t give an excuse “only for this
time”. I would totally agree since every time could be unique and therefore
demand an exception. He gives his own example. He does not play on Sundays
which is Sabbath day as a matter of principle. When the finals basketball
tournament came on Sunday he told his coach he will not play. Coach was
incredulous. Thankfully his team won. He also strongly advocates that principle
of sacrifice deepens the commitment – be it job, marriage or friendships.
I liked his distinction between bad capital and good
capital. He refers to Prof Amid Bhide, whose research suggests that 93% of the
companies had to abandon the original idea before they became successful. In
other words, winners became so because after the original idea failed they had
some cash left to try another one. When winning strategy is not clear, we
should be patient for growth and impatient for profits. Once clear we should be
impatient for growth and patient for profits. Capital which is in that order is
good capital and the other way is bad capital.
Clay’s caution on
outsourcing is poignant. He talks about the Greek tragedy of outsourcing by DELL
computers. Initially, the business model was disruptive as they pioneered made to order model rather
than standardized builds. It was also very modular. Each sub system can
be picked by the buyer based on needs.This transition was nicely aided by Taiwanese company called AZUS. First they did a very small manufacturing services to DELL.Then,
slowly moved on to make mother boards and later everything
for DELL except the branding part. It eventually robbed DELL of some critical
capabilities that would be required in future. He suggests a framework
(Resources-Process-Priorities) to avoid the danger of outsourcing ones way to
mediocrity. It is like Theseus ship where every part of the ship got replaced
over time leaving one to wonder can it still be considered as Theseus’s ship?
It is a small book but worth the read many times.
Thanks for reading this far.
Regards
madhu
[1]http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0314/features-clayton-christensen-health-care-cancer-survivor.html
