Why Great Companies Fail

A principle that may make (or break) your business

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” It’s true that so often our good intentions lead to unintended consequences.

This lecture by the late patron saint of management & innovation theory, Clayton Christensen, proves this point once again.

One of his last public lectures, while he was undergoing treatment for cancer, was at Google. He gave this talk at Google headquarters on the unintended consequence of managing “by the book”.

He speaks slowly in the lecture because he’s learning how to speak again after losing his ability because of chemo therapy.

I miss Clayton Christensen. He was a great gift to all of us trying to figure out better ways to build and innovate.