How Will You Measure Your Life?

Clayton M. Christensen was a renowned academic. In 2010, he was diagnosed with a cancer similar to the kind that claimed the life of his father. That same year, he also suffered an ischemic stroke while writing How Will You Measure Your Life? that compromised his ability to speak and write. For this reason, he employed the services of James Allworth and Karen Dillon to help finish the book. While both Allworth and Dillon are credited as co-authors, Christensen writes in the first person, and writes about his own family, childhood, and faith. In 2020, Christensen passed away from complications of cancer.

In the book, Christensen discusses his own career path, noting that when he graduated from Harvard, he intended to become an editor for The Wall Street Journal. After other opportunities presented themselves, specifically the chance to help operate a start-up company called CPS Technologies, he eventually returned to Harvard as a professor at its business school. He uses his teaching career and end-of-the-year class discussion to help inform the content of the book.

As an academic, Christensen was most notable for his 1997 book The Innovator’s Dilemma. In it, he explores the