How Will You Measure Your Life?

Clayton M. Christensen is the primary author of How Will You Measure Your Life? He was assisted by James Allworth and Karen Dillon because at the time of writing, he suffered an ischemic stroke and partially lost the ability to speak and write. Christensen was a graduate of Harvard and returned to teach there. He begins the book by discussing some interactions with his students and claims he never imagined himself working in academia. He shares his career path when discussing the differences between deliberate and emergent strategy.

Christensen’s personal values inform much of the book, in addition to his intellect and experience. In many ways, the book itself is an intellectual exercise in which he applies business theories to life and relationships. Furthermore, his advice is also value based. Christensen speaks openly about his faith, and toward the end of the book, he digs deeper into how this faith guided him, especially during his college years in Oxford. Overall, he voices the importance of determining one’s purpose, with his own comprising being kind, generous, and devout. In terms of measuring his achievement of his purpose, he says, “[T]he only metrics that will truly matter to my life are the individuals whom I have been able to help, one by one, to become better people” (203).