Clayton M. Christensen
From BookJive
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| Born: | April 6, 1952 |
| Died: | |
| Residence: | Belmont, Massachusetts |
| School: | Brigham Young University, Oxford University, Harvard Business School |
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[edit] Biography
Born April 6, 1952, Clayton M. Christensen grew to be a very tall man. He is 6 feet 8 inches tall. Beyond this, Christensen’s stature as a businessman, author, and leader so exceeds this physical phenomena as to relegate his height to 10 inches shorter than the average man.
In 1975, Christensen graduated from Brigham Young University with highest honors and a BA in Economics. In 1977, he received a M.Phil. in Applied Econometrics and the Economics of Less-Developed Countries from Oxford University where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He received an MBA with High Distinction from Harvard Business School in 1979, graduating as a George F. Baker Scholar and was awarded his DBA from Harvard Business School in 1992.
A seasoned entrepreneur, Christensen has founded several successful companies. In 1984, he served as Chairman and President of Ceramics Process Systems Corporation (CPS), a firm he co-founded with several MIT professors. In 2000, along with a group of former students, he founded Innosight, which is a consulting and training firm that describes itself as “focusing on idea generation, strategy development, commercialization, and innovative process development.” In 2005, he launched Innosight Ventures. He is also the founder of Rose Park Advisors, an alternative investment management firm focusing on companies affected by disruptive technologies.
Christensen served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints in the Republic of Korea (1971-1973) and speaks fluent Korean. He worked as consultant and project leader with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) from 1979 to 1984 and was instrumental in founding the firm’s manufacturing strategy-consulting practice. In 1982 he took a leave of absence to serve as a White House Fellow as assistant to the U.S. Transportation Secretaries Drew Lewis and Elizabeth Dole. In 2006, he joined the board of directors of Tata Consultancy Services, Mumbai, India. In 1992, Christensen became a member of the faculty of Harvard Business School and is currently the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration.
Christensen currently serves his church (Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints) as an Area Authority Seventy and recently published a profound essay about his beliefs entitled, Why I Believe. He is extensively involved in several civic activities. He served from 1986 to 1994 as a Member of the Program Review Board and Strategic Planning Committee of the Brigham and Woman’s Hospital in Boston and was a member and chairman of the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Affiliate of the American Diabetes Association between 1984 and 1996. He is also a founding board member of the Combined Health Appeal of Northeastern Massachusetts as well as an elected member of the Town Meeting (Council) in Belmont, Massachusetts for eight years. In Belmont, he served as vice-chairman of the town’s personnel board and as chairman of its long-range financial planning task force. Christensen has served the Boy Scouts of America for 25 years as a scoutmaster, cubmaster, den leader, and troop and pack committee chairman.
Professor Christensen is the author and co-author of five books: The Innovator's Dilemma (1997), which received the Global Business Book Award, The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth (2003), and Seeing What's Next: Using Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change (2004). He edited two casebooks on innovation: Innovation and the General Manager (1999) and Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation, 4th edition (2004). He is presently completing two books that examine the problems of our healthcare and public education systems through the lenses of his theories, showing how these problems can be resolved.
Christensen has won numerous awards such as the Best Dissertation Award from the Institute of management Sciences for his doctoral thesis on technology development in the disk drive industry; The Production and Operations Management Society’s 1991 William Abernathy Award, presented to the author of the best paper in the management of technology; The Newcomen Society’s Award for the best paper in business history in 1993; and in the 1995 and 2001 McKinsey Awards for articles published in the Harvard Business Review.
Professor Christensen is best known for his study of innovation in commercial enterprises and his theories of disruptive technology as articulated in his book, The Innovator’s Dilemma which explains why successful companies are often unseated by usurpers armed with disruptive innovations. His book, The Innovator's Solution, outlines a predictable process would-be innovators can use to successfully create new growth businesses. In this book, Christensen, along with co-authors Scott D. Anthony and Erik A. Roth, argue that even those without proprietary information can use these theories to develop powerful insights into how the future will unfold in a given industry and to make wiser choices based on those insights.
Christensen’s research has formulated and defined three Core Theories of Innovation. The first is The Disruptive Innovation Theory that illuminates processes by which new entrants to an industry can achieve success by utilizing simple, low-cost innovations. Established companies invariably stick to sustaining innovations (improvements, both small and radical to existing products) and avoiding disruptive innovations (innovations that require new markets or change the structure of existing ones).
The second is The Resources, Processes, and Value Theory that explains why established organizations fail to market disruptive technology. An organization’s value chain and cost structure define it’s managements decisions and prioritization regarding the outlay of capital towards the particular disruptive technology. The ability to down-market (try to capture and accommodate a less profitable market) as opposed to up-marketing (fulfilling the needs of existing customers) usually does not coincide with ideas of good management that originally created the organization’s success. Business models and value networks used to deliver disruptive innovations are usually so different from the established organization’s that even if it tries to co-opt the disruption before it becomes mainstream, its processes and resources won’t allow it to do so effectively.
The third theory is The Value Chain Evolution Theory, which assesses whether a company has made the right organizational design choices to compete successfully. It stresses the importance of a company to evolve its value chain to focus on improving performance towards what customers need and to outsource the features and improvements that customers don’t want and won’t pay more to use—right now. Solving hard problems allows firms to capture value. Forward-thinking firms move to solve tomorrow’s hard problems because solving tomorrow’s hard problems creates tomorrow’s profits.
Professor Christensen and his wife Christine currently live in Belmont, Massachusetts. They are the parents of five children. The oldest son, Matt, is also a graduate of Harvard Business School and was a member of the Duke University basketball team when it won the 2000-2001 NCAA Championship. Their daughter Ann is currently a student at Harvard Business School and their son, Michael, is a graduate of Harvard College. Their son Spencer is currently doing missionary service in Taiwan and their youngest, Katie, is the most beautiful girl in the greater Boston area.
[edit] Books and Articles
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