Here I wish to share a
small yet important section of the book How Will You Measure Your Life? by
Clayton M. Christensen, James Allworth and Karen Dillon. This book has received
rave reviews in terms of touching the heart of the matter i.e. how to lead a
life in today’s growing complex scenarios.
Earlier book of Prof.
Clayton The Innovator’s Dilemma is a classic book on how disruption can cause
trouble to well established institutions. This book is an extension of lecture
given by Prof. Clayton. Here I wish to share what I liked the most in the book
and which is very valid and pertinent today. This is Resources, Process and
Priorities.
One has to read the book
to understand many other insights provided by the authors.
Difference
between Resources and Process
“Take a young man sitting in class. Teachers and Scholars can create knowledge,
and our young man can sit in class and passively absorb the knowledge that
others have created. That knowledge now becomes a resource for him; he might use
it to get a better score on a test that simply measures how much information he
has acquired. But it doesn’t necessarily mean he has acquired the ability to
create new knowledge. If he were able to take the information he absorbed in
class and use it to, say, create an application for a tablet computer, like an
iPad, or conduct his own scientific experiment – that capability is a process.”
(Page 129-130)
Difference
between Resources, Process and Priorities
“Resources are what he uses to do it, processes are how he does it, and
priorities are why he does it.” (Page 130)
Engaging
the kids in endless extracurricular activities to see that they are busy or
engaged
“Are the children developing from the experiences the deep, important
processes such as team work, entrepreneurship, and learning the value of
preparation? Or are they just going along for the ride? When we so heavily
focus on providing our children with resources, we need to ask ourselves a new
set of questions: Has my child developed the skill to develop better skills?
The knowledge to develop deeper knowledge? The experience to learn from his
experiences? These are the critical differences between resources and processes
in our children’s minds and hearts – and, I fear, the un anticipated residual of
outsourcing.” (Page 132-133)
On
un-employment among young men
“I worry that an entire generation has reached adulthood without the
capabilities –particularly the processes- that translate into employment. We have
outsourced the work from our homes, and we’ve allowed the vacuum to be filled with
activities that don’t challenge or engage our kids. By sheltering children from
the problems that arise in life, we have inadvertently denied this generation
the ability to develop the processes and priorities it needs to succeed.”
(Page 134)
