How Will You Measure Your Life by Clayton Christensen
Today I finished reading Clayton Christensen´s book How Will You Measure Your Life, and I rate it with a five out of five stars. Christensen creatively presents what he considers to be basic success principles of life, and expands them in two themes: (1) business management, and (2) the management of your personal life — under the argument that these two are not as different from each other. In order to achieve a concise quality review, I will restrict my discussion to the following: (1) the dangers of the marginal cost and incorrect allocation of resources, and (2) the job to be done
Optimal Asset Allocation
Clayton starts his book by questioning why did some of his peers succeeded at having a healthy families and a happy marriage, while others — who were just as professionally successful — struggled. A possible cause is what we call proper asset allocation in business management terms. Just like companies, we all have a limited amount of resources in what regards time and energy. Not allocating enough to the things that are important to us — such as our family — is the equivalent of having a company failing at implementing its strategy. Neither the company nor us will achieve its goals if we continuously deviate from it “just this once.”
Dangers of Marginal Cost Based Choices and “just this once”
The principle of proper asset allocation is present throughout the book, and we are later introduced to the dangers of marginal cost based managerial decisions, and “just this once”. Christensen provides examples of companies that faced bankruptcy– such as blockbuster — for not staying loyal to what would be optimal for their long-term strategy. The author expands that this is often due to the misplacement of incentives within an organization. Employees will often make a decision in behalf of the company for short-term reward with the objective of getting noticed, and CEOs would do so in order to see the results of their choices within their employment spam. He quotes C.S. Lewis that: “Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts,…Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape.”
He expands on the personal life side of the argument by stating that “It’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time.” Not allocating our resources — time and energy — into our long-term objective deviates us from what truly matters to us.
The job to be done
But how do you tackle what truly matters? This is, of course, when you know what is it that truly matters. Christensen gives the example of a market research done with milkshakes and two different potential customers: one being truck drivers, and the other being children at home. Since the job of the milkshake for truck drivers was to keep them entertained during a long trip, they preferred it thicker. On the other hand, it would be optimal for the milkshake to be less thick for kids because they would take too long to finish otherwise. Defining the “job to be done” provided with two different approaches to the thickness of the milkshake. Allocating our resources to the incorrect purpose leads to unsatisfying results. The principle expands to relationships. They are considerably more successful when both stakeholders know they role and their purpose. What is the job to be done to alleviate or truly care for the other one?
