Just a random thought. why doesn't Professor Christensen run for President? He will be a perfect, wonderful President. Nice, Decent, most of all, knowledgable. His expertise is just what this country badly needed. President Clayton Christensen. How nice. People from all over the world will
love and respect him.
Clayton Christensen has died
81–90 of 131 posts
Re: Clayton Christensen has died
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's interesting because I've always perceived Mormonism (at least the dogmatic kind) as being intolerant given its history of racism and sexism. I suppose a lot has changed over the years, although I've still never met a black mormon and I even lived in Boise for like 4 years
> I've still never met a black mormon and I even lived in Boise for like 4 years You live in Boise. So... I know many black Mormons, but only in places with a significant black population. FWIW, Utah had a black LDS Congresswomen for the past several years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mia_Love
As a former Mormon, black mormons were so rare that they were treated like celebrities.
Re: Clayton Christensen has died
#83Earlier 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.
It'll be tougher and probably take longer, but there's no real reason it can't happen. You'll notice there's nothing in the Book of Mormon about LGBTQ+ issues. Everything church leaders have said about it is quoting either the Bible or each other. I predict that eventually they'll quit talking about it (like they quit talking about birth control and working moms). There will be a period of live and let live, where gay couples can't get sealed in the temple but are welcome at church and nobody thinks any less of them, and trans kids transition and nobody pitches a fit. And eventually they'll announce a revelation that same-sex marriages are ordained of God, a bunch of fundamentalists will leave the church, and we'll be caught up with 2019 morals (in 2047 or whenever it is).
Re: Clayton Christensen has died
#84Just a random thought. why doesn't Professor Christensen run for President? He will be a perfect, wonderful President. Nice, Decent, most of all, knowledgable. His expertise is just what this country badly needed. President Clayton Christensen. How nice. People from all over the world will love and respect him.
Skills and attribute applicable to business and academia don't automatically translate to politics.
Re: Clayton Christensen has died
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Almost every religion that has been around as long as the LDS Church has the same issues. But if you're comparing it to churches that have been around only 10, 30, or 50 years, sure. --- It used to be that the LDS Church was "too" pro-black by society's standards. That was a large reason for Missouri's infamous Mormon "Extermination Order": > We believed them deluded fanatics, or weak and designing knaves, and that t…
Not to mention Utah was the second state to grant women the right to vote.
That implies that Utah is (or was) a theological state, which is an accusation and stereotype the LDS Church has been fighting since before statehood.
Re: Clayton Christensen has died
#86This is a great article in so many different ways.
I like the enfaphasis on word choice:
> Disruptive innovation became a ubiquitous term. Cable channels produced “disruptor lists.” Some observers said the term’s use added sophistication to any discussion. Others complained it was overused. Various forms of it regularly pop up in discussions about sports, for example. To his chagrin, users often apply it as a synonym for anything new or transformative, not understanding Christensen’s actual theory. The ubiquity worried him.
> “If we call every business success a ‘disruption,’ then companies that rise to the top in very different ways will be seen as sources of insight into a common strategy for succeeding,” he once said. “This creates a danger:
> Managers may mix and match behaviors that are very likely inconsistent with one another and thus unlikely to yield the hoped-for result.”
THIS. I witness this so many times a week.
People do not understand what the terms really means and the difference that makes the difference.
This ends up being the source of misunderstanding when people says "X works" and "X does not work."
"Agile", "Artificial Intelligence" and "Cloud" in the workplace are others terms that are commonly misused.
In private life "intermittent fasting" and "meditation" come to mind.
If somebody is successful at something or they have something that work, I am always ask about the process or giving me a real example of what they are talking about.
Make the right distinctions is so critical to properly model their success.
> 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 in 2016, “was that the term disruption has so many different connotations in the English language, that it allows people to justify whatever they want to do as, ‘Oh, this is disruptive,’ and they don’t ever read the book. The population of people where the fewest have read the book are venture capitalists. They are arrogant and smart and why do they need to read something?”
> He wished he’d created something less expressive.
This is so true. You want a phase that is catchy to grab attention of large audience but you also need one specific enough that is hard to misuse.
Re: Clayton Christensen has died
#87Some 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…
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Re: Clayton Christensen has died
#88I 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…
I just commented on this too. Choose your word very carefully. They will be misinterpreted. Your job is to pick the right words so you minimize the misintetpretation.
Re: Clayton Christensen has died
#89My previous company, in true disruptive fashion, was setup as an autonomous entity outside of Fortune 100 mothership with the sole goal to crack a certain market.
3 years in, as we were passing through the trough of disillusionment, I picked up _The Innovator's Dilemma_. Boy did it predict everything we went through. It was like happening upon the script for your life. It was a transcendental experience. And I've recommended the book to anyone there who would listen to me! At one point I was considering buying copies of it and giving it to the executives but I refrained. One thing I took away from the whole experience is knowledge will only take you so far, execution is everything. When someone like Clay comes along and imparts profound wisdom, capitalize on it.
World lost a great mind.
Re: Clayton Christensen has died
#90Somewhat off topic but it's interesting that Andy Grove was a big proponent of Christensen but Intel still got completely disrupted when the smartphone revolution kicked off. Though Grove was gone by the time of the iPhone he still should have seen it coming with the growing success of the Palm and Windows Mobile devices that preceded it.
Intel's main problem with mobile was that they saw x86 as a big potential incumbent advantage given their dominance on desktop and server. Which if they could have made competitive x86 mobile chips would probably have been an absolutely correct observation. But they couldn't even though they kept plugging away past the point of no return. I saw Intel presentations during the mid-2000s or so where they were making a b…
I think this is an important point. I was at a company that got disrupted out of existence, and The Innovator's Dilemma was required reading for all employees. So it's not that companies are necessarily unaware of the impending problem, it's just that they are often structurally unable to respond.