LEADERSHIP: FOR SUCCESS – AND HAPPINESS

Like Professor Clayton Christensen, I’ve faced a life threatening cancer and found it a crucible for clarifying my thinking about what’s important. The day after the operation, my wife asked me to step down from chairing a major fund-raising appeal for my daughter’s school. This seemed reasonable and I agreed. Overnight, however, I came to a different view: what was the point of being alive if I turned my back on this type of activity? We all face such decisions but, as Christensen points out in the July-August edition of the Harvard Business Review (2010), we must be proactive in formulating our life strategy. Are you clear about what you’re doing to ensure you are successful, have a happy family life and live by rules of which you can be proud? Below are Professor Christensen’s three strategic questions.

1. How can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career? As with each of the questions, he applies one or more business methods. In this case, resource allocation: the decisions that actually manifest a company’s strategy in the world. A parallel in his life was setting aside an hour a day (while at Oxford as a Rhode Scholar) to immerse himself in topics far removed from his econometric work. His reading and reflection allowed him to shape a life purpose: where – and how – he wanted to invest his time in this world. Quoting Frederick Herzberg, he emphasises that money is seldom as powerful a career motivator as are learning, growing in responsibility and contributing to others.
2. How can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness? He carries over the resource-allocation approach to this area as well, emphasising the decisions we all make that prioritise our time between competing demands – and preferences. He also highlights the concept of culture – and its importance in families as well as companies. He cites the need to build self-esteem and self-reliance in children, as in employees. Not avoiding, however, the need (particularly when children are young) to lay firm guidelines; even, on occasion, being coercive.
3. How can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail? He recognises that this seems an odd formulation, when talking about career success. But he gives us a wake-up: “two of the 32 people in my Rhodes scholar class spent time in jail.” He argues here that marginal-cost analysis can lead to incremental thinking and wrong-headed self-justification. “I know that as a general rule, most people shouldn’t do this. But in this particular extenuating circumstance, just this once, it’s OK.” Through that crack in the floor, hell beckons. Life becomes an unending stream of extenuating circumstances

I quibble with some of his arguments. For example, he sees the misallocation of resources as arising from short-termism, whereas I think it more often comes from focusing on the wrong objectives. I also feel he overlooks the synergy across his three questions: improving one helps the others as well. Being satisfied at work and honest in your decisions also makes you more congenial at the family dinner table.

Professor Christensen is his own best advertisement: a fine and respected scholar at the top of his profession – and still living the purpose he formulated decades ago. Truly walking the talk!

Categories for this Potshot:

HBR articles, Great-leader Potshots, Career planning,

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