A gem from Clayton Christensen

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Shared by: Kirk Averett

I never met Clayton Christensen, though he did once provide me a helpful reply to a question. His passing last week caused me to consider what I learned from him through books, videos, and written speeches. He was, by many accounts, a kind man and a good husband and father, with an extraordinary intellect. He is well known for his theory of disruptive innovation, which is worth studying.

My favorite gem of insight from Clayton Christensen comes from a commencement speech at Southern New Hampshire University:

"A turning point in my intellectual life occurred while I was an MBA student at the Harvard Business School, discussing a case study about a peanut butter company. I was taking notes about what the management of the company should have done differently, when I put down the pen with a troubling realization: I was not going to work for a peanut butter company – and even if I did, the problems I'd see most likely would be very different than these. So why was I taking notes about what the managers should have done ten years earlier? Just then, a woman in the class made a brilliant comment. Rather than write down the answer she gave to the instructor's question, however, I wondered, 'What question did she ask when she was preparing for the discussion that led her to such a great insight?' So I wrote that question down. A bit later another classmate made a similarly insightful comment. Again, I asked, 'What question did he ask that led to that answer?' I wrote that question down, too.

That afternoon when I was preparing for the next day's discussion, I put those two questions on the table while I read, and asked those questions of the case. They helped me get insights that I otherwise would have missed. From that time on, as I participated in the class discussions I would keep noting what questions led to the important insights. I would add them to my list and use them to prepare the next day's case. Sometimes I'd find that a question that had been useful for a specific case rarely was useful on others, so I'd cross it off my list. Over the course of the semester I iterated towards my custom method for thinking through each category of problem. The valuable skill, I realized, was to ask the right question. That done, getting the right answer was typically quite straightforward."

I will miss learning from him, though I am grateful for all the gems he left behind.

The text of the speech can be found here: https://www.longwoods.com/content/22212//the-importance-of-asking-the-right-questions