celebrate Clayton Christensen - 1

For the last one week, I have been listening again and again to a Hindi song 'Nahin Saamne' composed by Oscar winner and one of India's greatest spiritual forces, AR Rahman. I have been having sleeping difficulties and this song was helping me. I don't understand Hindi well but I kept listening to the song again and again. Every time I hear this song, it would have either rained or will rain or there will be clouds at least. I believe that ARR would have produced this song through meditation.

Nahin Saamne means 'You are not there in front of me'. Clay is not there in front of me or anyone today. He had written in his beautiful article 'Why I believe, why I belong' that he experienced Jesus Christ when he was a student at Oxford. I used to tell my friends that I experienced god through him and his writings. Now he has become god.

04 February is special.

It is exactly 12 years ago when I received an email that strengthened my belief in myself and changed my life forever. That email was from Clayton Christensen.

I wrote a blog post 'Gandhi - The Disruptive Innovator' on 23 December 2007, my son's first birthday. I was a 2nd year MBA student in Japan. I showed the blog to my friends. They liked it. My professor Wakayama-sensei liked it. I got the courage to send it to Clayton Christensen, the Professor whose books (my text books in that semester) taught me and the world what is disruptive innovation. Here is the email.

Link to the blog: https://vgthinks.blogspot.com/2007/12/gandhi-disruptive-innovator.html

Now, you would be curious to know what Prof.Christensen wrote back. You can try one of these two choices now. You can skip my blogpost link and directly go to his email below or you can read it and then go to the email below. I'll let you make the choice that works for you.

If you tried one of those choices, I would request you to ask your friend to try the other choice and you can compare notes on what changed in that blog if you read it first or if you read it after reading his email. Most importantly, were you able to relate to what I had written?

Who am I? Even my apartment neighbour, living in the same floor, doesn't know me. Imagine an MBA student, 12 years back, studying in a remote village in Japan, writing to the world's most influential management thinker. He could have written back saying 'Interesting post. Good luck with your studies' which already would have been the world for me.

I sent four lines and a link to a blog, written in unpolished English. He sent me five paragraphs with an unbelievable example and also, an insight. A Clay Christensen insight is the sharpest and the most profound piece of wisdom you can read at any point of time. I didn't even know what an insight meant at that time. I started understanding only recently. He synthesised my lengthy and unstructured blog into one line:

Nonviolence attracts people to a cause or conflict who would otherwise not be engaged

I was wondering whether that was what I intended to write in the first place. I wanted to apply his framework metaphorically to the non-violent movement in India led by Gandhi-ji. The world's top management thinker had written back saying that my insight was important and that the decision makers in the countries around the world need to realise this. My mind voice -

'Really? Am I that good? Did I really think all this while writing? He is saying so and there must be something'

What level of humility he might have had to 1. first read my email, 2. then to read my blog written in that English, 3. then apologise for the delay in response (seriously?), 4. then, write five paragraphs with a mind-blowing example + an insight and 5. then, finally and most importantly, make me believe that I have written something important when I had not even thought about it when I wrote it.

CEOs would pay any amount to get one hour of his time. He might have spent at least 30 - 60 mins to read my email/blog. I am pretty confident that my writing was (and it still is) so unpolished and so unstructured that he would have found it tough to comprehend. On that front, I can be proud to make it so difficult for a person known to simplify any complexity. Most importantly, he wrote an email back to me.

What is 1 hour of Clayton Christensen's time worth?

People who met him and who worked with him knew.

Do I deserve it?

Only he knew.

You read a big sample of his humility in the email above that he sent me. If you had sent an email saying 'Hi', this is the response you would have gotten in return. You will really feel special about you after reading the response below. He is honoured that you reached out to him.

It is hard to believe that one can be so humble but I experienced what it means to be humble when I met him. I have never seen a person more humble than him.

Clay was the epitome of humility!

------------------------

Appendix

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

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

AR Rahman's Nahin Samne:?I started Tribute 1 with the song below. Please close your eyes and listen to this Hindi song.?Your nostalgia will be restored in high quality.