HOW WILL GOD MEASURE YOUR LIFE? H O W
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t is not the norm for Business School academics to turn attention to matters of how students can identify their personal purpose and find fulfilment in life. That sort of endeavour is usually reserved for private spaces, for people who practice some kind of religious faith or consider themselves spiritual. That is, however, exactly what happened eight years ago when renowned business thinker and innovation consultant Professor Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School was approached to address graduating students on how to apply some of the academic wisdom for which he had become famous, to their post-university careers and life. Christensen’s Christian faith was thus brought to bear on the now seminal article “How Will You Measure Your Life?” Some of the thoughts shared in that publication are helpful for reflection on finding purpose and meaning in our lives. Being an academic, Christensen’s approach is to pose three core questions to his students: first, how can you be sure you’ll be happy in your career?; second, how can you be sure your relationships with your spouse and family will be an enduring source of happiness?; and third, how can you
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be sure you’ll stay out of jail, given the moral and ethical challenges business leaders worldwide will continually face? By this line of questioning, Christensen is shifting the young, ambitious student’s focus from buying, selling, leadership and management to the more fundamental matters of life: personal happiness, fruitful personal relationships and an ethical or moral code for lifelong success. These, he maintains, are more important than all the business and economics theories they have learnt in Business School.
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to remain humble and always be eager to learn from everybody; and sixth, don’t ever fret about the level of personal fame you attain, but rather focus on the persons you help to become better along the way. “I’ve concluded that the metric by which God will assess my life isn’t dollars but the individual people whose lives I’ve touched. I think that’s the way it will work for us all. … This is my final recommendation: Think about the metric by which your life will be judged, and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged a success”, states Christensen. Put differently, one could say the famous Business scholar is asking, ‘How Would You Measure Your Success in Life?’ It is not a reflection to be taken lightly, which is why I take the liberty to flip the question as follows: ‘How Will God Measure Your Life?’ This latter formulation is perhaps helpful because in an age of increasing individualism, it is quite possible to define one’s success criteria and completely leave out a more eternal perspective.
HOW wOULD YOU MEASURE YOUR SUCCESS IN LIFE?
An academic’s guide to success in life would not be complete without theories and their application. There are six such wisdom nuggets recommended by Christensen. First, create a strategy for your life; second, allocate your personal resources of time, energy and talent wisely; third, create a culture at home to ensure your children learn to choose rightly in various situations because families have cultures, just like companies do; fourth, avoid moral or ethical failures by rejecting the lie that your wrong choice will be done ‘just this once’; fifth, remember 20
That is to say, one must answer the
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