Reunion Profiles
Clay Christensen
(MBA ’79)
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Clayton M. Christensen is the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at HBS, where he holds a joint appointment in the Technology and Operations Management and General Management units. He is the author or coauthor of the best-selling books The Innovator’s Dilemma, which won the Global Business Book Award in 1997, and The Innovator’s Solution (2003). His latest book, Seeing What’s Next, will be published this month. Christensen has been active in church and community affairs throughout his career. He and his wife, Christine, are the parents of five children.
Almost every turning point in my life has put me on an unexpected path. I came to HBS as a student after serving in Korea as a missionary for the Mormon Church. That experience had left me eager for a career that would have an impact on global economic development, probably with the World Bank (although I also thought I might like to be the editor of the Wall Street Journal one day).
When our first child, Matt, was born four days after I began at HBS, my own economic development became an issue. My wife wanted to stay home with Matt, and I was working part-time to make ends meet. When BCG said they would pay my second-year tuition if I accepted a job with them after graduation, I couldn’t turn them down.
Much to my surprise, I liked consulting, and I didn’t leave BCG until 1984, after our second and third children were born, and the travel and time away from the family became too intrusive. With several MIT professors, I cofounded Ceramics Process Systems Corporation, a technology company where I served as chairman and president until I earned my DBA and joined the HBS faculty in 1992.
It was really my time with that company that gave rise to my research on technological innovation. In the 1980s, I watched the struggles of many of the large technology companies that we were competing against. I knew the people who were running these companies, and they were really smart. The typical explanation of why companies fail — what I call the “dumb management hypothesis” — just didn’t fit. There had to be a different answer.
My first book on this topic, The Innovator’s Dilemma, explored my theory that developing advanced technologies is rarely the primary challenge for leading firms. Rather, the stumbling block lies in introducing new technologies into existing and prospective markets. That this book became widely read was, again, the result of an unexpected event: An article featuring my work was to be published in Forbes, and the magazine’s cover story fell through. I didn’t have the name recognition to merit a cover story, but the publisher of Forbes knew that Andy Grove had read and liked my book. At the last minute, someone from the magazine talked Andy into posing with me on the cover. Needless to say, the exposure was great for my career!
Along with my research, being an HBS faculty member has enabled me to try to instill in my students a love of learning. This is not always an easy task. Today’s students seem preoccupied with job offers almost from the time they arrive. Recruiting briefings start in the fall of the first year, and the competition is tough. Against that backdrop, it’s sometimes difficult to get them to see their two years here as a process and to feel the joy and excitement I experienced when I began to understand technology and to see how it opens up the world.
In trying to balance work and family, I have been influenced by a talk Mitt Romney (MBA ’74/JD ’75) gave at HBS when I was a student. He reminded us that nobody leaves HBS with the intention of getting divorced or having an unhappy family life. But because MBAs so often focus too narrowly on professional achievement, he admonished us to include success in family and community endeavors in our definition of achievement. As a result, I’ve tried very hard throughout my career to wall off weekends and evenings for activities other than work. All of us have weak backbones, especially when it comes to how we spend our time and energy. If you don’t have rigid rules to support you in the face of that pressure, you will cave in.
I learned so much when I was a student at HBS, and I continue to be grateful to my teachers, especially Ben Shapiro, Jack Gabarro, and Steve Wheelwright. I’ve actually accused Steve of being an “intellectual terrorist” because he planted ideas in my head 25 years ago that are still setting off insights as I go about my work today.
