The Queen's College Record 2020

introduced the notion of ‘disruptive innovation’ in his seminal book, The Innovator’s
Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. It became a New York
Times bestseller and received the Global Business Book Award for the best business
book published in 1997. More than two decades later, business leaders from around
the world continue to credit Christensen’s work on disruptive innovation for their ability
to innovate, grow, and compete in today’s global economy.
Obituaries
In Christensen’s 2003 book, The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining
Successful Growth, Christensen summarises a set of theories that can guide
managers trying to grow new businesses with predictable success. Drawing on years
of in-depth research, the book shows that innovation is not as unpredictable as most
managers have come to believe, and teaches managers how to think about the issues
that limit – and provide – growth in organisations.
In Seeing What’s Next: Using the Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change,
published in 2004, Christensen presents a framework for predicting outcomes
in the evolution of any industry. Based on theories outlined in The Innovator’s
Dilemma and The Innovator’s Solution, he offers a practical model that helps decisionmakers
spot the signals of industry change, determine the outcome of competitive
battles, and assess whether a firm’s actions will ensure or threaten future success.
More recently, Christensen focused his innovation lens on two of the country’s most
vexing social issues: education and health care. Disrupting Class: How Disruptive
Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (2008), named one of the best
books on innovation that year by Businessweek, looks at the root causes of why US
public schools struggle, and offers a blueprint for how technology can be effectively
applied to the classroom. The Innovator’s Prescription (2009) examines how to fix our
healthcare system, a personal topic for Christensen, who had long had diabetes, but
then in his fifties suffered a heart attack, cancer and stroke.
In 2011, Christensen published two books: The Innovative University: Changing the
DNA of Higher Education from the Inside Out and The Innovator’s DNA: Mastering the
Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators.
Throughout his life, Clayton was candid about the health struggles he faced, and the
talk he gave to the MBA Class of 2010 – later captured as a wildly popular article in
Harvard Business Review and in book form as How Will You Measure Your Life?—
epitomised the thought with which he approached every challenge and his innate love
of teaching. The Harvard Business Review article of the same name won the McKinsey
Award for best article of year.
Although Christensen’s legacy will live on through his ground-breaking theories, bestselling
books, and the countless generations of students, scholars, and executives he
taught and mentored, he will also be remembered for his generosity, kindness, and the
individual people whose lives he has touched, most especially his family.
College Record 2020 | The Queen’s College 119