Source: Green Proton, author: Clayton Christensen (Clayton Christensen), the famous management guru thought, Harvard Business School professor, Typography: Dai Weiwei, Proofreading: Mumu
January 23, 2020, local time, Clayton Christensen, a well-known master of management thought and a professor at Harvard Business School (Clayton Christensen ) died of illness at the age of 67.
In 2010, Clayton Christensen, who has been diagnosed with lymphoma, was invited to give a lecture to Harvard graduating students. During the speech, Christensen shared his candid insights into the meaning of life-“To measure our lives is not money, but how many people I can help to become better people.”
This speech was very successful and has been greatly discussed by the society. The following is the full text of the speech:
One
I received a phone call from Intel Chairman Andrew Grove (Andrew Grove) , and he asked me if I could talk Talk about my research and what it might do at Intel.
I flew to Silicon Valley to meet them, but later I was told that I could only explain my research in 10 minutes. (Destructive Model) < / span> to Intel.
I insist that it takes a full 30 minutes to explain the model, including describing the source of the model-from a completely different industry (Steel Industry) .
I talked about how Nucor and other small steel mills started by entering the lowest-end market, steel bars, and then entered the high-end market, defeating those traditional steel mills.
When I finished telling these stories, Grove began to clearly explainThe strategy of entering the low-end market and launching Celeron processors.
I have thought about it countless times since then. If I told Grove at the time what to think about the microprocessor business, I would probably be rejected.
But I just taught him how to think, and then he found the correct answer himself.
▲ Clayton Christensen, Peter Drucker, W. Chan King, and Renee Mobone are both in management Every master is respected and respected by the managers.
This matter has affected me deeply. Since then, when people ask me what I think they should do, I rarely answer their questions directly.
I will use one of my models to explain the problem, and then describe how this model is applied in a different industry.
Then people who ask me questions usually say, “Okay, I understand.” Then, they can answer their questions with more insight than I do.
Second
My course system at Harvard Business School is to help my students understand what is good management theory and how it is structured.
In each chapter, we observe a company with different models or theoretical perspectives-applying them to explain how the company has come to this point, and examining what management actions may produce the desired results .
Now, in the last day of class, I ask my students to aim the theoretical focusing mirrors of themselves and find convincing answers to the following three questions:
First, how do I ensure that I will be happy in my career?
Second, how can I ensure that I and IWill the relationship between your spouse and family become a lasting source of happiness?
Third, how can I ensure that I will not go to prison?
Although the last question sounds like a joke, it’s not.
I had 2 of the 32 students in the Rhodes Scholar class who had been in prison. Jeff Skilling of Enron (Enron) was also my classmate at Harvard Business School. They were all very good people, but something in their lives led them astray.
Management is the most noble profession
Frederick Herzberg’s (Frederick Herzberg) ‘s theory of happiness states that the most powerful motivating factor in life is not money, It’s those opportunities to learn, opportunities to grow in responsibility, opportunities to contribute to others, and opportunities to be recognized for achievement.
Before I became a scholar, I ran a company myself. One day, I imagined that one of my managers came to work with enthusiasm in the morning and drove home 10 hours later with an unappreciated and frustrated feeling. I was wondering how her feelings would deeply affect her getting along with the children.
Then, my imagination fast-forwarded to another day, and she went home with a better sense of self—feeling that she learned a lot, was recognized for doing something very valuable, and was important The success of the project played an important role. I was wondering how this would positively affect her as a wife and mother.
My conclusion is: if done well, management is the most noble profession. No other profession can offer so many ways to help othersLearn and grow to take responsibility and be recognized for achievements and contribute to the success of the team.
When more and more MBA students come to business school, they think that doing business is buying and selling and investing. This is unfortunate. Doing business doesn’t bring the kind of deep rewards you get by shaping others.
I hope students will understand this when they leave my class.
Develop a strategy for your life
For the second question, there is a management theory for reference. The first point of this theory is that the strategy of an enterprise is determined by the types of projects invested by managers. If the resource allocation of an enterprise cannot be managed very skillfully, then everything caused by it will be very different from management expectations.
Over the years, I have been watching the fate of my classmates of Harvard Business School who graduated in 1979.
I see that more and more people are unhappy when they come to parties. They are divorced and alienated from their children. I assure you that none of them wanted to divorce or alienate their children when they graduated, but a lot of them did.
What’s the reason? This is because when they are deciding how to use their time, talents, and energy, they do not put the purpose of their lives ahead or at the center.
I tell my students that school will be their last chance to think deeply about these issues, because life will only get more and more demanding.
It has always been important for me to have a clear goal in my life. But before I really understood this goal, it was indeed a question I had to think about for a long time.
When I was a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford, my academic research was incredibly difficult, even at the same timeAdd an extra workload over a year. But I still decided to spend an hour every night reading and thinking.
I used to be paradoxical about whether I really could afford to take those time out of my research, but I still insisted on it-and finally made clear my purpose in life.
If I still spend that hour every day learning and mastering those economics knowledge, I will really waste my life.
I use that economics knowledge only a few times a year, and the knowledge about my life purpose is used every day. That was the single most useful thing I’ve learned.
If you don’t want to take the time to figure this out, you will be like a ship without a rudder, and you will be devastated by the raging sea of life.
Allocate personal resources
A person’s resources include his time, energy, and talent. How to control his personal resources will ultimately affect the formation of his life strategy.
I have a bunch of things to compete for my resources-to maintain a good relationship with husband and wife, to develop good children, to be successful in my career … and so on.
So, my problem, like the company, has limited time, energy and talent. How should I allocate these things that I want to pursue?
▲ Clayton Christensen and his wife Christine Christensen.
Different choices can lead your life in a different direction than expected. Sometimes this is not a bad thing, because you may find some unexpected opportunities.
But if you misuse your resources, the output will be bad. As I put my energy into emptiness and misfortuneClassmates, the mistakes they make come from short-sightedness.
When those who really want to achieve—including graduates of Harvard Business School—have an extra half an hour or a little extra energy, they always unconsciously divide it into the things that best reflect their achievements. –cause.
In contrast, investing time and energy in relationships with your spouse and children usually doesn’t immediately show the same sense of accomplishment—the child may do something wrong every day, and I ’m afraid to wait until 20 years before you can say proudly: “I have raised a good son or daughter.” They can also ignore the relationship between husband and wife, as if day by day can not see the worse.
These people often unknowingly overinvest personal resources in their careers and ignore the family. They often fail to realize that the close and harmonious relationship with their families is the strongest and most enduring source of their happiness.
Creating a culture
There is an important model called a collaboration tool. Its basic meaning is that being a visionary manager does not always give a keen insight into the misty future and outlines it, as some people say. It is one thing for a company to adjust the course it needs, and persuading employees who have not seen the future changes, and letting them work together to take the company in that new direction, is completely different.
Knowing “what tools you use to bring the cooperation you need” is a key management skill.
The theory ranks these tools in two dimensions-the degree to which members of the organization agree with what they want from their joining the business, and the degree to which they agree with what action they can take to achieve the desired result.
If you have low approval on both axes, you need to use “tools of power”-coercion, threats, punishment, etc. to ensure cooperation. Many companies start in this quadrant, which is why the founding manager teams are dictating what must be done and howWhen doing so, we must play such an arbitrary role.
If the way employees work together to complete these tasks is repeated in this way, consensus will begin to form. Edgar Schein of MIT sees this process as a mechanism for building culture.
Ultimately, people don’t even think about whether the way they do things will lead to success. They accept priorities through instincts and responsibilities, and follow work procedures-which means they have built a culture.
Culture, in an irrevocable but irresistible way, determines those proven and accepted ways of acting, and it is through these ways that members of the organization respond to recurring problems. Culture also prioritizes different types of issues. It is a powerful management tool.
The simplest tool that parents can use to bring children’s cooperation is the power tool. But there is also a point in time when in their teens power tools no longer work.
If you want your child to have strong self-esteem and confidence so that they can solve difficult problems, these qualities cannot be achieved suddenly in high school. You have to design these things into your family culture-you also have to think about these things very early.
Like employees, children build self-esteem through a process of doing difficult things and learning how to do it effectively.
Avoiding the “Mission of Marginal Cost” Misunderstanding
In finance and economics, when we evaluate the choice of each investment, we must ignore “sunken costs” and “fixed costs” and make decisions based on the marginal cost and marginal benefits of different options. . But this financial economy’s evaluation theory of investment can often mislead companies.
If the future will be exactly the same as the past, this theory is correct. But if the future is very different from the past (and generally so), then this theory should not be used.
This theory answers the third question I discussed with the students-how to live a righteous life (not to go to jail).
People often unconsciously apply the “marginal cost” theory to the right and wrong decisions in our personal lives. A voice in our heads often says, “Although I know that most people shouldn’t do this according to general principles. But in this special and excusable situation, this time, no problem.”
People often think that the marginal cost of this “only once” is very low. This idea sucks people in like a sucker without ever seeing where this road eventually leads, and the full cost of this choice. .
In all forms of infidelity and dishonesty, the reason they justify is marginal cost economics, “just this time.”
There are many small decisions of all kinds in a person’s life. In fact, it is easier to adhere to your principles 100% than to adhere to them 98%.
In theory, you can definitely cross the line only once, and never do that again. However, if you resist the temptation of “in this particular circumstance, this time, no problem”, you will benefit immensely.
Because life is a river full of unknowns. If you cross this line of defense once, you will probably cross it again and again in your future life.
As some of my classmates have done in the past, you will definitely regret the results you finally get.
You have to define your own principles, then use your principles as a benchmark and draw yourself a safe line of defense.
Remember the importance of humility
All humble people have one thing in common: They all have a high degree of self-esteem and confidence. They know who they are and feel good about themselves.
“Humility” is not the same as self-deprecation or self-mockery, but a kind of respect for others. From this form of humility, good behavior always naturally occurs.
It is so important to bring “humility” into society. When you first entered a top graduate school, almost everything you learned came from people who are smarter and more experienced than you: parents, teachers, bosses.
When you leave Harvard Business School or any other top university, you will find that the people you deal with every day, most of them, may not be as smart as you. At this time, if you think you can only learn from someone smarter than you, then you have greatly reduced your chances of learning and growing.
In short, you can only be humble if you are truly confident. When we see some people treating others in an aggressive, arrogant, and degrading manner, their behavior is actually a manifestation of inferiority. They need to belittle others to make themselves feel good.
Choose the right rule
I was diagnosed with cancer last year and I have to face that my life will probably end sooner than I expected. Thank God, it looks like I may have survived now. But this experience gave me a different perspective on life.
I’m clear that my insights have brought huge benefits to companies that have applied my research; I know I have had a profound impact. But when I face this disease, it’s interesting to see how unimportant those effects are to me now.
I concluded that God’s ruler for measuring my life is not the US dollar, but the people I used to influence their lives.
I think it’s a way that works for all of us. Don’t worry about the personal prestige you will gain, and worry about those who can become better with your help.
This is my last piece of advice for you: think hard about what is the right yardstick for measuring your life?
Source: Green Proton, author: Clayton Christensen (Clayton Christensen), well-known master of management thought, professor of Harvard Business School, typesetting: Dai Biwei, proofreading: Mumu