Through the years, he saw a lot of his classmates rise up the ladder becoming heads of Fortune 500 companies and successful entrepreneurs who earn"life-changing amounts of money" (as he puts it) and yet were unhappy.
He considers some of his classmates as not just the brightest but the most decent too. But along the way, some got lost. One even got involved in the financial collapse of Enron.
In his bestseller, "How will you measure your life?, Christensen tries to examine what causes things to happen and why in one's life. He uses the very same principles he teaches in his HBS class "Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise", only this time, he applies the theories to individuals.
He makes use of a lot of interesting business case studies (e.g. how Netflix killed Blockbuster, how Asus beat Dell, how Honda motorcycles penetrated the US market, why Disney Paris lost billions) and from these, draws out analogies to family, career and personal life. I enjoyed reading the business cases as much as the practical life applications.
But the chapter that I really like the most when it comes to practical applications is the one on how to live a life of integrity.
Christensen cautions us that sometimes when confronted with a situation, a voice in our head would say, “Look, I know that as a general rule, most people shouldn’t do this. But in this particular extenuating circumstance, just this once, it’s okay." ("Extenuating" means to make guilt or an offense seem less serious or more forgivable. Not that I knew its meaning - I had to look it up! Haha....)
He continues - And the voice in our head seems to be right; the price of doing something wrong “just this once” usually appears alluringly low. It suckers you in, and you don’t see where that path is ultimately headed or the full cost that the choice entails.
The author cites some examples of well-respected people who made such mistakes. People who began their careers with a true passion for what they were doing. But because they allowed this “just this once” attitude, they got lost - athletes who got tempted to cheat, businessmen who got involved in scandals, etc.
One story which Christensen shared was that of the 26-year old trader who brought down the British merchant bank Barings in 1995 after racking up USD1.3 billion in trading losses before it got detected.
Before it reached USD1.3B, you know how everything started? The trader just committed a relatively small error which he didn't want to admit so he tried to cover it up by hiding the losses in a little trading account. To recover the losses, he made a series of bets but unfortunately, the situation got worse and he lost more. He lied to cover lies; he forged documents, misled auditors, and made false statements to try to hide his mounting losses. Sadly, Barings was forced to declare bankruptcy because of the extent of the debt created by the trader.
When the trader got interviewed by BBC years after, he said he did what he did because he wanted success. Getting rich was not his motivation but to continue to be seen as a success. Since his trading mistake would ruin the perception of his success, he tried to cover it up, but at that time, he didn’t foresee how it would all end. After taking the first small step, he didn't know when or how to turn around anymore. In the interview he said “I wanted to shout from the rooftops… this is what the situation is, there are massive losses, I want it to stop. But for some reason you’re unable to do it.”
To cap the learnings and key takeaways, here are my favorite excerpts on how to live a life of integrity:
- Let us not allow ourselves to break our own personal rules “just this once” even if our mind can justify these small choices. None of these things, when they first happen, feels like a life-changing decision. But each of these decisions can roll up into a much bigger picture, turning you into the kind of person you never wanted to be.
- What usually happens is it starts with a small decision. You continue justifying small decisions that lead up to the big decision and when you get to the big one, it doesn’t seem enormous anymore. You don’t realize the road you are on until you look up and see you’ve arrived at a destination you would have once considered unthinkable.
- You can’t apply your rules most of the time. It’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time. The boundary – your personal and moral line – is powerful, because you don’t cross it; if you have justified doing it once, there’s nothing to stop you doing it again.
- The only way to avoid moral consequences of uncomfortable moral concessions in your life is to never start making them in the first place. When the first step down that path presents itself, turn around and walk the other way.
- Decide what you stand for. And then stand for it all the time.
