money quotes: how will you measure your life (assembled by symbolist)

Money Quotes “How Will You Measure Your Life?”

Clayton M. Christensen, James Allworth, Karen Dillon

www.symbolist.com

Money Quotes: “How Will You Measure Your Life?”

Clayton M. Christensen, James Allworth, Karen Dillon 2 www.symbolist.com

The following pages include some choice

quotes from the book “How Will You

Measure Your Life.” This book is an

extension of a commencement speech

that Clayton Christensen gave to the

Harvard Business School 2010 spring

graduating class.

The result is either a self-help book

masquerading as a business book or a

business book masquerading as a self-

help book.

Either way it is a wonderful book that

looks at life, happiness, meaning, and

integrity through Mr. Christensen’s familiar

lens of “business” and creates some

guidelines (not rules) that can help all of

us find a more honest and enjoyable path

through life and through work.

The book is really three sections:

1. Finding happiness in your career -

the true basis of motivation and

reward

2. Finding happiness in your

relationships - spending time

consistent with your priorities

3. Living with integrity - the pitfalls of

marginal thinking

Using this book as a management tool

will pay dividends for many years.

I’ve summarized some of quotes that

resonated with me in this slide

presentation. These are not exhaustive…

there are many, many other ideas and

points of view that are important.

I will be incorporating a lot of what is in

this book into my own day-to-day activity

– and in how I deal with my family, friends

and co-workers.

I hope this little sampler gives you a

reason to buy the book. It is well worth

your time – but only if you do something

with it!

There is a lot of opinion in this book.

Opinion informed by facts, research, data

and intelligence. But at the end of the

day it is one (actually three) man’s opinion

on how to find meaning and happiness in

your life.

There are many books written that profess

to have the “5 Ways to Drive

Engagement” or the “3 Simple Rules of

Leadership.” This isn’t that kind of book.

I do think that as a manager, as an

employee as an executive – this book

provides a pretty strong outline of the

things you can do for your self – and

more importantly with your subordinates,

partners and colleagues – to drive greater

emotional connection to your work – and

their work.

This book can, I believe, do more for

engagement in your company than

foosball tables and free beer.


Clayton M. Christensen, James Allworth, Karen Dillon 3 www.symbolist.com

Herzberg notes the common assumption that job satisfaction is one big

continuous spectrum—starting with very happy on one end and reaching

all the way down to absolutely miserable on the other—is not actually the

way the mind works.

Instead, satisfaction and dissatisfaction are separate, independent

measures.

This means, for example, that it’s possible to love your job and hate it at

the same time.

4

If you instantly improve the

hygiene factors of your job, you’re

not going to suddenly love it.

At best, you just won’t hate it

anymore.

The opposite of job dissatisfaction

isn’t job satisfaction, but rather an

absence of job dissatisfaction.


Clayton M. Christensen, James Allworth, Karen Dillon www.symbolist.com

5

So, what are the things that will truly,

deeply satisfy us, the factors that will

cause us to love our jobs?

These are what Herzberg’s research

calls motivators.

Motivation factors include

challenging work, recognition,

responsibility, and personal growth.



6

Motivation is much

less about external

prodding or

stimulation, and

much more about

what’s inside of

you, and inside of

your work.



7

The point isn’t that money is

the root cause of professional

unhappiness. It’s not. The

problems start occurring

when it becomes the priority

over all else, when hygiene

factors are satisfied but the

quest remains only to make

more money. Even those

engaged in careers that seem

to specifically focus on

money, like salespeople and

traders, are subject to these

rules of motivation—it’s just

that in these professions,

money acts as a highly

accurate yardstick of

success.



8

We should always remember that beyond a certain point,

hygiene factors such as money, status, compensation, and job

security are much more a by-product of being happy with a job

rather than the cause of it.



9

The theory of motivation suggests you need to ask yourself a different set of questions than most of us are used to

asking.

Is this work meaningful to me? Is this job going to give me a chance to develop?

Am I going to learn new things? Will I have an opportunity for recognition and achievement?

Am I going to be given responsibility?

These are the things that will truly motivate you. Once you get this right, the more measurable aspects of your job

will fade in importance.



10

I used to think that if you cared for other people, you need to study

sociology or something like it. But when I compared what I imagined

was happening in Diana’s home after the different days in our labs, I

concluded, if you want to help other people, be a manager. If done

well, management is among the most noble of professions.



11

…Strategy is not a discrete

analytical event—something

decided, say, in a meeting of

top managers based on the

best numbers and analysis

available at the time.

Rather, it is a continuous,

diverse, and unruly process.



12

Real strategy—in

companies and in our

lives—is created

through hundreds of

everyday decisions

about where we spend

our resources.



13

In fact, if you study the root causes of business disasters, over and over

you’ll find a predisposition toward endeavors that offer immediate

gratification over endeavors that result in long-term success.



14

Professor Amar Bhide showed in his Origin and Evolution of New Business that

93 percent of all companies that ultimately become

successful had to abandon their original strategy — because the original plan proved not to be viable.



15

The only way to have

those relationships

bear fruit in your life

is to invest long

before you need

them.



16

Managers can’t be there to watch over

every decision as a company gets

bigger. That’s why the larger and more

complex a company becomes, the

more important it is for senior

managers to ensure employees make,

by themselves, prioritization decisions

that are consistent with the strategic

direction and the business model of the

company. It means that successful

senior executives need to spend a lot

of time articulating clear, consistent

priorities that are broadly understood

throughout the organization.



17

When you boil it down, the

factors that determine what

a company can and cannot

do—its capabilities—fall into

one of three buckets:



resources,

processes,

and priorities.

18

Resources are what he

uses to do it,

processes are how he

does it,

and priorities are why

he does it.



19

Self-esteem—the sense

that “I’m not afraid to

confront this problem

and I think I can solve

it” — doesn’t come

from abundant

resources.

Rather, self-esteem

comes from achieving

something important

when it’s hard to do.



20

…it’s common to describe

culture as the visible elements

of a working environment:

casual Fridays, free sodas in the

cafeteria, or whether you can

bring your dog into the office.

But as MIT’s Edgar Schein—one

of the world’s leading scholars

on organizational culture—

explains, those things don’t

define a culture. They’re just

artifacts of it.



21

Culture is a way of working

together toward common

goals that have been

followed so frequently and so

successfully that people don’t

even think about trying to do

things another way.

If a culture has formed,

people will autonomously do

what they need to do to be

successful.



22

It’s easier to hold to your principles 100 percent of the

time than it is to hold to them 98 percent of the time.



23

Management doesn’t

need to dive into the

details of every decision,

because the culture —

almost as an agent of

management — is present

in the details of every

decision.



24

I genuinely believe that

management is among the

most noble of professions if it’s

practiced well.

No other occupation offers

more ways to help others learn

and grow, take responsibility

and be recognized for

achievement, and contribute

to the success of a team.



25

Prepared by Symbolist…

We make your workplace a better place to be.



money quotes: how will you measure your life (assembled by symbolist)

Business

karen dillon

james allworth

money quotes

hygiene factors

finding happiness

money

business

make