and a father. His most recent book is called How Will You Measure Your life?

Douglas Goldstein, financial planner & investment advisor, interviewed Christensen on Arutz

Sheva Radio.

Douglas Goldstein: You recently came out with a book called How Will You Measure Your Life

which is a very different book from the previous books you've written. Could you tell us a

little bit about what made you do that?

Clayton Christensen: It has its origins with my students at the Harvard Business School

and just the structure of the book entails for every class, I asked the students to read

a paper that describes a theory about management, a theory as a statement of what causes what

and why. And then after they've read the theory, they also have to read a case study about

a company that is in a problem than can be understood if you look at that company to

the lens of this theory and then we discussed what we can see to the lens of this theory.

The next day, we have another case and another theory about another dimension of a manager's

job and you try to then understand that day's case through the lens of that theory and then

when you are done, you put on yesterday's theory to see if you can understand this case

even more at deeper depths so we do that through the course of the semester. At the end of

the class at the suggestion of my students, we dedicate the last session of the class

to examine ourselves and is it possible that these theories about management actually can

help us understand if I keep doing what I'm doing 20 years down the road, what is my life

going to look like and if I want to be a particular person 20 year down the road what do I need

to change about now in order to become the kind of person I want to be and if I keep

doing what I'm doing, is it possible that my life is going to turn out what I would

never hope to happen to me. Then we just discuss if I examine my future through the lens of

these theories, what does it say about where I'm going and what I need to change and it

truly is an extraordinary experience. It turns out that these theories of management are

not just theories about management that there are fundamental explanations of what causes

what and why.

About five years ago with a particular set of students that year, we just had an extraordinary

course and several of the students had recorded the session and they asked would you give

this talk to some class session at graduation for the Harvard Business School students and

so I did it and I guess that was really quite useful to other people. They asked if I would

write a case or write a book about this experience and what the insights were that emerged from

that discussion.

Douglas Goldstein: In the book, you talk about finding happiness as a big part of your goal

and as a financial advisor, I talk to clients and we are talking a lot about money and I

always try to refer to them back to the original goals which is it's not about how much money

you have, it's about how much life you have. I've explained this many times but for a lot

of people they are still finding it difficult to make that connection. How do you help people

along that path?

Clayton Christensen: It turns out that it's not just people who have that problem. Companies

have that problem. General Motors has just been disrupted in [my bank] which is by Toyota

and managers of General Motors, nobody ever got down with the management team or the board

and developed a plan for driving General Motors into bankruptcy, but they did what the right

thing seemed to be at that time and yet doing the right thing added up to a future that

none of them intended to have happened to them.

The reason why that happens is if you are driven to achieve whether you are running

a company or in your personal lives, you have an extra ounce of energy or 30 minutes of

time. Instinctively, you'll allocate that to whatever activity yields the most immediate

and tangible evidence of achievement and our careers provide immediate and tangible evidence

of achievement. We close the deal, we ship a product, we finish a design, we make a great

presentation, we get promoted, we get paid and yet investing our time and energy on our

children or the relationship with our spouses, they don't pay off on the short term. In fact,

investments in our children, time spent with them doesn't pay off at all on a day to day

basis. The children misbehave every day and it's really not until 20 years down the road

that you can put your hands on your hips and say, "Man we created a great daughter." On

a day to day basis, you don't have that feedback and that's why even though none of us intend

to get divorced and have children who are alienated from us who hit their guts, a shocking

number of people actually have implemented a strategy that they didn't intend

to pursue.

Douglas Goldstein: Do you see any particular models or particular steps that a family could

take in order to insure that they can see the bigger picture?

Clayton Christensen: You need to set rules because if you make these decision on a case

by case basis, it will always seem to you in the moment as if it's okay if I don't invest

in what matters today because I can start that tomorrow. Just like a company can say,

"We don't need to invest for the longer term today because we can start that tomorrow"

and you really have to set balance. For example in my own life when I finished with an MBA

from Harvard, I made a decision with my wife that I just wouldn't work on the Sabbath because

I'm a religious guy as you are and if I want to live a life close to God, I need to invest

my time that's consistent with that priority and then the other day in the weekend, we

decided I wouldn't work on that day either because I want to spend that time with my

family and it was really hard because my colleagues and my employers wanted me to work on weekends,

everybody works on weekends, but I had to make that decision once and stay with it otherwise

I'll make decisions that will lead me in a path that I don't want

to go down.

People

wonder all of the time, "Clay if you are not working every weekend, how can you be successful

in your profession?" and my answer is, "If I do what God wants me to do, he will magnify

me so that I can be more capable of doing what I need to do professionally" and if I

didn't prioritize what God wants me to prioritize the it would just play an old ordinary Clay

Christensen competing against thousands of Clay Christensen type people. I really do

think that if we do what God wants us to do, God will magnify us.

Douglas Goldstein: What are you working on now?

Clayton Christensen: I'm working on a new book called the Capitalist's Dilemma that

tries to explain why in North America, Western Europe and Japan, the financial parts of our

economy seemed to be doing quite well but we are not creating new jobs and why can the

real economy not rebound from the most recent recession in a robust way.

Douglas Goldstein: How can people follow your work and learn more about some of the many

books that you've written?

Clayton Christensen: I'm a professor at the Harvard Business School. I have a website

that summarizes the elements of my research. They can find us at www.claytonchristensen.com

and they can also navigate towards this through the Harvard Business School Website itself.