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Clayton Christensen has died

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Re: Clayton Christensen has died

#61
post #45
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exmormon here who has spent significant time with relatively larger names in that org. No, Clay was pretty unique in my view. With due respect to him, the tolerance of conflicting belief often portrayed by his co-adherents is typically extended as a proselytizing or marketing tactic and isn't offered to former Mormon congregants terribly often (see reddit.com/r/exmormon for thousands of documented experiences, or the…

Marketing tactic or not, if that is the behavior, that's the behavior, it's unfair to ascribe intentions and discount the behavior. There are definitely some LDS that fall into the trap of taking offense when someone leaves the religion and then don't treat that person well. They take it as a personal slight that someone else is claiming their religion is wrong. Either by actions or in words. But I have also noticed…

Look up Heartsell[0][1] sometime. Bonneville Communications is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mormon church. They attempted to sell inclusion and heartfelt feelings as a marketing strategy.

They got caught the first time and it was minorly bad PR. They haven't been caught since.

Note this is what the central organization does, of which most of the congregants are naive or deliberately uninformed. When I taught missionaries how to be Mormon missionaries several decades ago, "BRT" was part of the sales principles--build a relationship of trust. Why? To get people to buy what you're selling. This is also taught to congregants not actively serving missions, though not as deeply. Consider the calls of "Every member a missionary" (McKay, 1960s), "Lengthen your stride" (Kimball, 1980s), "Hasten the work" (Bednar, 2010s) where membership is exhorted to use sales practices on their neighbors.

It's not ascribing bad motives or pretending to know what motivated people, it's having grown up in it and now seeing it outside the organization, objectively and after years of therapy and deprogramming.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20150219201604/http://www.bonnev...

[1] http://johnlarsen.org/podcast/Archive/MormonExpression250.mp...

Re: Clayton Christensen has died

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From someone who lived in Utah for 20+ years and whose stepfamily are all Mormon, I wouldn't think of tolerance as one of the faith's defining characteristics. Although the intolerance often manifests itself as the kind of fake niceness found in movies when an old lady character needs to belittle someone with a sweet smile or calmly shut them out of polite society, not the fire breathing intolerance that wants to wag…

> From someone who lived in Utah for 20+ years Members in Utah are different to members outside of Utah, haha.

yeah that's pretty well known too. proximity to the prophet I suppose.

Re: Clayton Christensen has died

#64
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with many religions, "tolerance" is a sensitive issue: blacks, women, LGBT. But yes, there is the stereotype of a humble/reserved successful Mormon businessman. (E.g. I'd put Mitt Romney in that category too)

The LDS Church put its "racist" past behind itself fairly easily because the "Mark of Cain" canard was trivial to dismiss as misinterpretation. LGBT acceptance will be a much, much tougher slog for them, given the central and critical importance that eternal families play in its doctrine and view of spiritual progression.

Indeed; I doubt LGBT will ever be "accepted" (that is, esteemed as virtuous) by the LDS Church. As you said, it runs directly contrary to core doctrines.

Re: Clayton Christensen has died

#65
I heard Clayton Christensen speak at an "honors dinner" my freshman year of university in 2000. I asked him what interesting things he did when he was a university student. He said he would get together with his friends once a week - and each would take 10-15 minutes to present the most interesting thing they had learned that week.

He also organized a university wide book club - including making books available at designated tables in the cafeteria, and hosting the author for a speaking event. "Guns Germs and Steel" was popular at the time, and he used that as an example of the type of book they would read.

Everyone knows about the Disruptive Innovation, but he also wrote "Disrupting Class" on how disruptive innovations would change universities/education - and put some out of business. On this vein he founded the Christensen Institute [1] a non-profit (in Redwood City, CA). I don't know a ton about it, but I've really enjoyed the research/ideas posted on their blog over the years!

Some here have posted about his faith. I've always thought it was bold that he had a four page PDF on his personal website [2] about his faith [3].

[1]: https://www.christenseninstitute.org/ [2]: http://claytonchristensen.com/ [3]: http://claytonchristensen.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Why...

Re: Clayton Christensen has died

#66
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exmormon here who has spent significant time with relatively larger names in that org. No, Clay was pretty unique in my view. With due respect to him, the tolerance of conflicting belief often portrayed by his co-adherents is typically extended as a proselytizing or marketing tactic and isn't offered to former Mormon congregants terribly often (see reddit.com/r/exmormon for thousands of documented experiences, or the…

I would say that r/exmormon may not be the best indication of the faith as the whole, as it is essentially the equivalent of a product review site where people with the the biggest axes to grind congregate and create bit of a bubble that is out of touch with reality, much like other subs that are essentially devoted to the dislike of or dissatisfaction with something like r/atheism, r/fuckepic, r/redpill, etc. That i…

I shared your feelings before leaving Mormonism (I was heavily involved in setting up the billboard community found in r/latterdaysaints and community engagement via r/mormon several years ago). Over 100k former Mormons are there. You get the full spectrum. It offers a community to people who are kicked out of where their weekly community is no longer available (really, read their experiences sometime). A lot of people get mistreated, at a minimum, or downright abused.

Re: Clayton Christensen has died

#67
Some times, when I look at some celebrity scholars, I scratched my head wondering what did they do to deserve their reputation. But Dr.Christensen's work is truly great. He is a genuine scholar. Innovator's dilemma is groundbreaking research. I learned a lot from the book. Intel CEO Andy Grove is a kind of arrogant guy for a lack of good words. Andy used to tell a16z's Partner Ben Horowize that He has a full shelf of Management books gifted from management Professors. Andy threw them away only keep the first page of each book with author's signature and nice words. From this article, Dr.Christensen's work apparently gained his respect. that is not an easy feat. Considering Andy Grove himself also wrote a great business book, high output management. Just check Dr.Christense's wiki page, He was a Rhode scholar. No wonder. Clayton Christensen, Rest In Peace. You are a wonderful Professor. Thank you. Miss You

Re: Clayton Christensen has died

#69
I'm currently reading Competing Against Luck and it is a truly eye-opening book that highlights and puts the finger on a lot of the luck-based innovation work we've been doing over the years.

I was planning on taking MR Christensen's online class[1] this coming April, but I wonder if this will still be happening given Mr Christensen's passed away.

Would anyone have any good resource, online classes, books, videos, etc that they would recommend to learn more about Jobs to be Done and Disruptive Innovation Strategy?

[1] https://online.hbs.edu/Documents/Syllabus_Disruptive_Strateg...

Re: Clayton Christensen has died

#70
post #7

I remember reading How Will You Measure Your Life years ago right after college and enjoying it. I also found the following section from the article especially thought-provoking: > He second-guessed the wording of the label, but never the theory. Even after he changed his terminology to disruptive innovation, he saw flaws. > “What we didn’t anticipate, and what in many ways was a fault of mine,” he told Quartz.com in…

One of my litmus tests for whether I trust someone's judgement is whether they take the time to read and interpret the concept, and whether they openly admit when they have not.

There are a few words that come to mind in my day to day where this definitely applies: "disruption," "affordance" (UX design), and "agile." All of them point back to an originating body of research and writing and then tons of discussion as the idea gained popularity, so there's a concrete test of "did you read it and try to internalize it?"

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