Four lessons from Clayton Christensen's life: Happy Birthday Clay!

06 April 1952

It is 68 years since Clayton Christensen, the noble man, descended into this world. Happy Birthday, Clayton Christensen! It is 72 days since he left this world. 72 days - 68 years = 4. You may ask 'How can you subtract 68 years from 72 days? In my language Tamil, if someone passed away, we will say 'He has become time (???? ?????????)'. It doesn't matter it is days or months or years. That is only for human beings, not for nature.

Clay has become TIME. His teachings remain TIMELESS.

Four lessons, among the countless lessons, from his noble life -

Lesson 1: Seek and Understand the Truth

If you seek truth - you will become empathetic, you will become humble, you will become peaceful and you will love everyone. In the process, you will become truthful and the universe will reveal its intelligence through you. But Truth is bitter at times. Truth is hard. Truth will expose you. It will humble you. It will make you naked. There will be no place to hide. There is no right or wrong in that space. It will help you to see the paradox inherent in everything. Clay was a seeker of truth who was curious to understand innovator's dilemma and the growth paradox through an empathetic question - why do good companies led by good, caring people fail? The truth is 'Nothing is permanent in this world, not even Clayton Christensen'.

Lesson 2: Accept the Suffering

Clay had diabetes, heart attack, cancer and a stroke according to the 10 year old Forbes article 'The Survivor'. He had to fight diabetes. His fingers were black because of the injection pricks to test his glucose levels. He had to fight cancer. He had to fight heart problems. His body became his battlefield. He had to FIGHT multiple battles in that battlefield. It must have been very painful and he must have suffered a lot. He accepted what life offered him, understood the pain points and accepted the suffering. Gandhi said 'Truth is God'. Clay belonged to the church of Latter Day Saints and believed in God, his truth. While he was fighting a war in his body, he was able to love his work and cater to his various stakeholders including family, community, students, corporates, governments and the world.

Lesson 3: Serve Others

Clay's seminal work on disruptive innovation helped companies rethink how they innovated and created new business models. Disruption became an everyday jargon. His teachings greatly helped in the pre-covid context. Currently, the whole world is disrupted by a tiny virus. Every thing from our daily routines to our work routines have been disrupted. Even the disrupters are disrupted. It is time we disrupted our own selves so that we can withstand this massive disruption so that we can help others to navigate their disruption. His last big teaching was 'Data is NOT the phenomenon'. If this is understood properly, it will help people & organisations to reduce their stress levels and anxieties to a great degree. Even while he was suffering, he was serving others through his thoughts, questions & ideas.

Lesson 4: Be FEARLESS

If you do all the above, you can be FEARLESS. FEARLESS doesn't mean absence of fear. Our conditioning will bring the fears back. The fear will manifest in many different forms that include doubt, anxiety, worry, pain, hate, dislike, anger, symptoms, disease, frustration etc. How do we FIGHT against fear? It is a battle every moment and every day because of our conditioning. It is a war. In a war, strategy is everything. Strategy is a choice around resources, processes and values. Re-organize your life so that you can choose to fear less and use the mental space to do productive things. Fear less. Fear for important things. The FIGHT is important.

You may even wonder what was the connection between Clay and No.4.

My daughter calls me a joker because she thinks I am dumb and funny. She asked me to watch the film #Joker and I absolutely loved it. Having established the context that I am a joker, I am going to make some wild connections. Clayton Christensen's pet name is Clay which has 4 letters. My pet name is viji, 4 letters. He was born in April, 4th month. I was born in April too, April 2. His birthday (06 April) - my birthday (02 April) = 4.

The word Guru has 4 letters. Clay is my GURU.

Happy Birthday, Guru-ji!

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Appendix

To read the whole journey, please read in the order below

1. What I learnt from my MBA?
2. celebrate Clayton Christensen - 1
3. celebrate Clay Christensen - 2
4. celebrate Clay - 3
5. celebrate CLAY - 4

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