How Will You Measure Your Life?

At his Harvard Business School class reunions, held every five years, Clayton Christensen began to notice an alarming and disturbing human pattern. His classmates were men and women of dazzling intelligence, boundless energy, and impeccable academic backgrounds, who had left the university with lofty ambitions to transform the business world.

At the early reunions, everyone showed off astronomical salaries and meteoric promotions at prestigious international investment banks and consulting firms. However, as the decades went on, the atmosphere of the gatherings was overtaken by dark confessions: marriages shattered in painful, contentious divorces, distant children who barely spoke to their parents, and even beloved classmates who had been sentenced to prison for financial fraud and corporate scandals.

No one had set a graduation goal of having a failed marriage or ending up behind bars. The realization that brilliant, well-intentioned people were ruining their personal lives simply for lack of clear criteria led Christensen to craft the master lecture that gave rise to this book: how to apply the best management theories to ensure a truly happy and upright existence.

To answer how to find lasting satisfaction in professional life, the author turns to the motivation theory formulated by psychologist Frederick Herzberg. This theory divides the elements of work into two radically distinct groups: hygiene factors and true intrinsic motivators.

Hygiene factors encompass your monthly paycheck, health insurance, the corporate status of your title, job security, and the physical conditions of the office. If these elements are poor, a professional will feel a corrosive dissatisfaction; however, even if the salary is multiplied by ten and the office has a panoramic view, hygiene factors only eliminate discontent. They are completely incapable of making someone love what they do.

True intrinsic motivation is born of noble factors: the opportunity to learn continuously, the autonomy to make decisions, a sense of personal responsibility, and the certainty of contributing to a mission with authentic meaning. Selling your professional soul solely for high financial compensation is the classic recipe for waking up bitter at forty.

In formulating corporate strategy, researcher Henry Mintzberg teaches that there are two paths that must converse wisely: deliberate strategy and emergent strategy.

Deliberate strategy is based on rigid goals planned in advance: passing a specific civil-service or licensing exam, making partner at a firm by age thirty-two, or buying a first home by a set date. Emergent strategy, in turn, springs from the unexpected opportunities that arise around the bends of daily life, inviting a person to test paths they had never considered in their youth.

Christensen warns that the right posture depends on the maturity stage of your career. If you have not yet found a professional activity that activates your true motivation, the wise posture is to stay in emergent mode: try out varied projects, talk to professionals from other fields, and accept detours along the way. Only after finding what makes your eyes light up should the scale tip toward deliberate, disciplined execution.