Clay Christensen: Hi, this is Clay Christensen, and I want to welcome you to a podcast series we call The Disruptive Voice. In this podcast, we explore the theories that are featured in our course here at HBS, building and sustaining a successful enterprise. In each episode, we'll talk to alumni of our course, and others, who are trying to put these theories to use in their lives and in their organizations. It's great fun to hear from them, and I hope that you find these conversations inspiring and useful. If you have an idea about a topic or a speaker that you'd like to hear more about, or if you'd like to comment on our work, please reach out to us here at the school.

Erin Wetzel: Hello everyone. Thanks for joining us today on The Disruptive Voice. I'm Erin Wetzel, and we are honored to have Emily Snyder here with us today. Hi, Em!

Emily Snyder: Hi.

Erin Wetzel: I'm going to take a minute to introduce Emily, but just so everyone knows, Emily and I go back a few years, so this is going to be a very fun conversation for me to have with her. And we're so grateful to be able to pick her brain today on all things, Clay, and also what she's doing at Magnolia in Waco, Texas. So just to give a little bit of background about Emily, she is a wonderful human being, and I met her in Oxford, actually. So picture this. It's 2013, I was on a study abroad through Brigham Young University at Oxford, where Clayton Christensen was the Clarendon lecture series guest speaker that year. They had set it up so that our study abroad would... our group would get to see Clay give the Clarendon lecture series, as well as have some out-of-class time with him as well.

Erin Wetzel: And I was not a business major, so I thought Clay wouldn't give me the time of day. I, obviously, didn't know him back then. But knowing Clay now, he wants to give everybody the time of day, regardless of their background. But I had seen Emily behind the scenes helping Clay, so I just thought this was the coolest thing, that Clay had a female assistant and she got to do so much cool stuff. So one day I realized that maybe instead of trying to get Clay's attention, I would ask Emily about her path and how she had gotten to work for this amazing man. Because once I met Clay, I just knew there was something special, like so many of us do when we... We felt that same light from him.

Erin Wetzel: So while everyone else was kind of clamoring for Clay's attention, I sat down with Emily, and I was blown away at how vast her experience was. She had been a teacher, she had worked for a large religious organization, and she had so many skills that made her this perfect candidate to work with Clay. And after meeting Emily, I thought, "Hmm, Clay's a pretty lucky guy too to have such a capable assistant."

Erin Wetzel: So fast forward, about five years, Emily and I kept in touch, and she reached out to me and said Clay was looking for someone new to come onto his team. So I jumped at the opportunity and said, "I can't believe this. This is a dream of mine." And I'm neglecting to admit that I walked up to Emily when I first met her and said, "I want to have your job someday." Like, "This looks really cool." I wasn't trying to butt her out of her job, but I just said, "Wow, this is something that I think looks amazing." And I knew she had all these cool things, so I just wanted to learn from her and be like her.

Erin Wetzel: Anyway. Fast forward, Clay was so nice to hire me and asked me to come on and work with him. And I owe that to Emily, because she took the time to meet with me back at Oxford and set me up with some time with Clay, and the rest is history. So I've loved my time working with Clay, and Emily has been such a beacon of hope and light to me, and she's always been there with any questions that I've had. Working with Clay is... I had some big shoes to fill, and she helped me those. And of course, Brittany was the one that actually took over for Emily after she left to go to grad school. So with that, we're going to jump in with Emily, and hopefully Em, you can tell us a little bit about your background. First of all, what led you up to this job with Clay, and where you first heard about Clay and how you met him. So take it away.

Emily Snyder: Before I answer that, going to make sure that my mother gives you your paycheck, because you are beyond kind, as usual.

Erin Wetzel: Okay. Well, I'll be expecting that in the mail. No, it's-

Emily Snyder: Great. Great. Thank you. You know the feeling is so mutual about you. So Clay, I first heard about Clay Christensen when I was working for the church for the... Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints. And he was on a small committee with one of the women that I was working with, and she would come back... It was about single adults in the church and kind of how we were thinking about them and how we were creating opportunities for growth and et cetera. And this woman I worked with would come back from every one of those meetings, just on fire and just so excited and just blown away with these ideas that this man in Boston was talking about.

Emily Snyder: And she would leave her notes for me, so that I could peruse them and read them. And I just was so excited and interested in the things that he was creating and just thought, "Wow, what a brilliant mind, what an insightful mind, who's thinking about things in a very different way than most people that I knew." And so it was just really... That was the first time that his name came across my world.

Erin Wetzel: Okay. And so a followup to that, when you were interviewing and once you had gotten the job with Clay, what was your thought on your first day on the job with him? And then I want to know your thoughts at the end of your first day and what you thought after working with him for a full day, you were just like, "Wow." Or what was your response?

Emily Snyder: When I ended up having an interview with him, I can still remember what I was wearing. I was so nervous. I was just like... I felt like a country bumpkin girl like-

Erin Wetzel: I thought that we do.

Emily Snyder: ... walking into the... He's like, "Hallways Harvard and just that." Oh, my word. Like, nobody I knew in my life even knew what the word Harvard was. Like, that was just a foreign word in my world. And here I was, not just visiting, but it got to go into a meeting with one of the professors, and Clay Christensen of all of them. And he explained disruptive innovation to me, and I remember thinking, that's the smartest thing ever, and just really blown away. I honestly don't know that I remember my first day. It was probably, obviously, a blur, and I just... The whole first, like six months, I just remember thinking I was drinking out of a fire hose. And even into the first year, just like, there's so much stuff, so many new things to think about and learn and to catch up, and I felt like I was just running to try to be kind of worthy to be the one to capture all the things that he was holding on to.

Erin Wetzel: Yes. That's a perfect-

Emily Snyder: I didn't answer your question.

Erin Wetzel: You did, but you touched on something so interesting that I think anyone who has worked closely with Clay can relate to, is this idea of drinking out of a fire hose, and also, things being a blur, because you're just going at 90 miles an hour to try and keep up. I don't remember sleeping, I don't remember... I don't know how I got to work every day, I just know that I did, and somehow, it turned out to be this glorious experience. But it is... overwhelming is not the right word, but it's just a lot. It's a lot to take in, because you're right, he is on such a different level than all of us that it was fun, but you had to be quick to keep up. So, thanks for expressing that.

Emily Snyder: Of course. I think, and I'm sure we'll talk more about this, but when I started, it was in April, after he had had his stroke in August. And so he was still learning words and still caught in trying to remember a bunch of words. And he would come out of his office... He was in a season where he would write on his hand. Like, if he was speaking, he would try to spell it out in his hand a little bit to try get the word in his head. But he'd sometimes come out of his office and say, "What's that word? [inaudible 00:09:02]." I kept thinking, "I'm a sixth grade school teacher. That's really what I am. And I have no idea what words that you're thinking of."

Emily Snyder: And he would get so frustrated at times. And I remember one time saying, "Well, Clay, welcome to what the rest of humanity feels like on a regular basis. I'm sorry that like your super powers are gone, but like, this is what the rest of us feel like." And then as he learned and grew and continued to practice, his super powers came back in so many ways. But I just remember... He'd come out numerous times, and I just remember thinking, "Huh, you've forgotten more than I've ever learned."

Erin Wetzel: Correct.

Emily Snyder: That's great.

Erin Wetzel: How did that feel for you to know that you were being leaned on, and Clay actually really needed you to help him in that moment? This wonderful academic giant, this spiritual giant, this giant of a man, how did that feel for you, knowing that you had that resting on your shoulders?

Emily Snyder: He would leave... I knew I was going to cry. He would periodically leave a PostIt note, or one time I walked in and there was this... and it was probably after hours, because there were so many nights and weekends. There was a bouquet of flowers with just a PostIt note that said, so grateful. He just was... in just little ways would just acknowledge that he was just so appreciative of me being there and the efforts that I gave. We were doing 6:00 AM meetings, oftentimes, to 6:00 PM meetings. He would fight me when we were going to start. I would tell students, "No, you have to be ready for this." And he's like, "No, you don't, guys." So we were-

Erin Wetzel: Oh gosh.

Emily Snyder: He would just give and give and give, and I... I knew he knew how much I cared and he... In just little ways, I knew that he deeply appreciated it.

Erin Wetzel: He noticed that. Well, I can definitely attest to that feeling of feeling so humbled that someone like Clay would put his faith and kind of this sense of responsibility in me to help him, and yet it was such an honor and so humbling for me to realize that, "Wow, I get to help him, but at the same, time he's asking help." You know what I mean?

Emily Snyder: Right, right.

Erin Wetzel: So that just is the epitome of Clay, is never being too proud to ask for help, but just knew and trusted in us to help him get along. There's so much going on in his world that he truly was appreciative, and that's just who he was. That wasn't out of the ordinary. Right?

Emily Snyder: Right. Well, and I think sometimes it helps in that I didn't know what a name and force he was in the business world, truly, until I got into the middle of it, which was probably half of the water hose that I was learning, because it wasn't just Clay's world, it was business in general that I was learning. And so I remember a number of times those first couple of months I'd have emails that I was trying to respond to and I'd ask him and say, "How would you like me to respond to this?" At one time he said, "Well, if you would have read my books, you'd know the answer." I was like, "Oh."

Emily Snyder: And in my head, I couldn't say it, but I was like, "I didn't know about you. Like, I didn't know to care about the things that you wrote in your business works, and that didn't apply to me. And so like, I can't read them now, because I'm exhausted when I go home." So like-

Erin Wetzel: It's true.

Emily Snyder: Anyways. So there was just so much that I... And so because I didn't know just how, what a big deal he was, I think sometimes that was a blessing for me, because I didn't know just how big he was.

Erin Wetzel: Let's talk about how Clay was... He overcame so much, so you got to see that firsthand, and you actually did some pretty amazing things with him over the years. So if we could talk a little bit about going through some of those health crises without going into too much detail, but just what that was like to see him come back from that, and then also what that led to and what experiences you were able to have after he kind of started getting better.

Emily Snyder: Lisa Stone, before me, she actually was the one with him for a lot of the health stuff, and so mine was after his stroke, and so he was definitely on the-

Erin Wetzel: The recovery side of the-

Emily Snyder: Yeah, the recovery side.

Erin Wetzel: Sure.

Emily Snyder: He felt such an obligation to his students and such a desire to make sure that he was there for his students, that he never wanted to slow down. And so he always taught class and he made sure he was always on for that. And if other things had to slip, that was always the priority, was his students. But it was just mind-boggling to just watch his constant give and constant desire to be there for the people that needed him to be there, whether it was a student or the CEOs or the guy from church that needed a job or somebody that knew him from 20 years ago that had this sweet connection 20 years ago, but maybe they hadn't kept it up, and yet there they were in Boston and wanted to stop and say hi. Like, all those people were equal.

Emily Snyder: And so maneuvering and making sure there was time for them to interact with him, because that's what was important to Clay, was incredible. And to see that in practice, not just in theory, but that that was in practice and that was truly the desire of his hearts. Heart, he only had one. It was big, but it was just one heart.

Erin Wetzel: It was big. Yep. Yep.

Emily Snyder: So that was amazing. He was doing a lot of stuff. I was there when How Will You Measure Your Life? came out, went to England with him for that month. They went and did another sabbatical months later that year, in 2013. But just got to soak in constantly. I remember one day he said, "Emily, I want this role, I want this job, I want your time with me to give you a different bus ticket in life, so that you can get to a different destination than you ever would have without this. And so that means any conversations that I'm having with people, any meetings that are happening, any contact that I may have access to that you're interested in learning about, the door's open, and you're welcome to join."

Emily Snyder: And so that was mind-blowing to me, when I realized just what that meant. And as more people came in and thought, "Oh my gosh, like he's not kidding." Because I always felt comfortable to say, "Can I come sit in on this and on that? And could I participate in that?" And he was quick to say yes, because he knew that I was going to get the things that had to get done, that that was always going to be my priority, and that I would take... I would do the work that needed to get done later, so that I could participate in some of those things.

Erin Wetzel: Absolutely. And for anyone that's listening that is trying to be, I guess, either more like Clay or just a better person, better manager, that is something that has stuck out to me so much with Clay as well. He did the same thing for me, and it was always... It almost felt like he had your back when even the people you were meeting with didn't think that he needed to. So they would look at me and be like, "Oh, your assistant's in the room." That's interesting. Or, "Why is she here?" But, like you said, Clay was quick to have our back and make this a learning experience as much as helping him along in his world experience. It was definitely a two-way street, and he never hesitated to help anyone, us included, which I think felt like such a big blessing.

Emily Snyder: Right. And then created that atmosphere amongst the whole "Clay" world. Like, anybody that Clay interacted with quickly recognized that the person that ran his calendar didn't just run his calendar, but was-

Erin Wetzel: You said it, not me. I'm glad you brought that up. But you said it, not me-

Emily Snyder: [crosstalk 00:18:07] like, yeah, people recognized that this was a spot that had a different voice. I remember one time there was a response... Because he was just so busy, there were a lot of times that there were things I had to respond as me, but on his behalf, like saying, this is what he'd like to have happen. And when there's an assistant title at the bottom of an email, the world tends to see like, Oh, I go and get coffee or I go fill up water glasses or I do whatever, I get the laundry. Whatever the thing is that typical assistants do was not what Clay had us do.

Emily Snyder: And so I remember one time saying, "Can I change my title in my signature for these interactions, so that they know that I'm not just the coffee, and that really, when I say it, it means something?" And he said, "Sure. Like, do what you need to do. Sir might be a little much. If you were to say that you were a sir in that title, it might be too much, but besides that, like, do what you need to do to get the stuff done." Which that level of respect and autonomy and trust, I was not going to take advantage of things-

Erin Wetzel: Absolutely.

Emily Snyder: ... but that he could trust me to do what I needed to do to get done.

Erin Wetzel: Absolutely. So you brought up... That's a good transition for us. You brought up before how Clay wanted to give you a different bus ticket, and you actually ended up deciding to go to business school. Can you tell us a little bit about how Clay helped you through that process and, again, how many managers listening out there can learn from the role Clay played in helping you achieve your dreams, and that he wasn't... He was so sad to lose you. I've even heard those stories about how devastating it was for the office of Clay Christensen to lose Emily. However, Clay knew from the start that you had big dreams, and that he was going to want to do everything he could to help you feel fulfilled in life. So let's hear a little bit about that business school decision from you.

Emily Snyder: Well, I think the thing that's so beautiful about what Clay created was that it wasn't just a me or a you, or it wasn't just that assistant role that he really wanted people to soar from, it was anybody that came in contact with him. That was his whole measure of success, was, are you left a better person after interacting with Clay Christensen, and are you feeling more capable and more strengthened and determined to do you? It's funny to even put business school as a dream of mine, because it wasn't. It wasn't at all a dream of mine. It took me years to even know what an MBA was. Like, what is that, and why would anybody want that?

Emily Snyder: I had initially moved to Boston because I had wanted to go to the Harvard Ed School and help teachers feel fulfilled and felt very passionately that if a teacher felt empowered as an individual and felt confident and encouraged as to who they were, that their classrooms would be like... they would be powerful rooms of learning and growth, and really wanted to teach teachers how to be their best selves. But the opportunity with Clay came along and I thought, "Well, school is always there. A Clay Christensen spot is a once in a lifetime, and so I'm going to..." I obviously choose Clay.

Emily Snyder: But a master's degree was always in the back of my mind, and for years, it was education. But then after a couple of years with Clay and interacting with his students and having gotten to participate in so many things with Clay and being in the room for conversations and gaining more personal confidence in myself... And there were a number of conversations we would have using his theories about church scenarios and local leadership for church structure and larger leadership structure using the theories, that my confidence grew as the leader and what I could contribute, and soon, I started thinking, "Well, I love these students and I want to play, I want to get to... My boss is so wonderful and I've had amazing bosses in my life that have let me sit at tables that I probably didn't earn or didn't have the great credentials for, and I wanted to be able to have a seat at those tables of my own accord, and I don't want to just rely on somebody being a really wonderfully gracious boss, but that I wanted any Joe blow to know that I had something to offer."

Emily Snyder: And so that's when I started thinking business school, and he was completely encouraging of it. Because he knows what an incredible path that education can always be, regardless of what educational path that looks like. And so he was just very encouraging. He, as always, was happy to do some introductions I chatted, because I didn't know a lot of single women in my age group and in my culture group that had pursued an MBA. And so it was really foreign territory to me. And I didn't have a lot of people in my world that could help guide that. And so he connected me with people, as typical, Clay style, and I was able to have conversations that helped refine my thinking, helped refine my goals at that point, and wrote an incredibly beautiful letter of recommendation, which he allowed me to see. Like, he let me see it and was such a gift and continues to be such a gift. So, there you go.

Erin Wetzel: Well, that's an amazing story. So now you have to tell us where you ended up going to business school. Where did you get your MBA?

Emily Snyder: Well, I thought, "I've spent almost six years at the best business school in the world, at Harvard Business School, and learned from incredible professors on personal levels and snuck into classes. Where do you go from here?" And I thought, "Well, maybe I go to the greatest city in the world and go to one of the best schools there, if they'll have me." And so I applied to Columbia Business School, and they let me hang out.

Erin Wetzel: Well, that was their gain and certainly, an awesome experience for you too.

Emily Snyder: It was. It was a game changer.

Erin Wetzel: Well, that's truly amazing. So tell us a little bit about what your experience at business school led you to and what you're doing now. I have a little pun for you later. So tell us a little bit about Magnolia and where you are now.

Emily Snyder: So business school was hard, being a sixth grade school teacher, as my undergrad, and not being in the business world. I joined a typical MBA class with 25 year olds that had been in the business world, had worked at banks and were analysts and all that jazz. So it was interesting season of life for me when I felt completely out of my league and learned a lot about me, learned a lot about business and, in a lot of ways, just refined the theories that I loved from Clay. They just became more crystal clear for me in a lot of ways. So in the middle of that, trying to figure out a job-

Erin Wetzel: [inaudible 00:26:31]. Can I pause you for a second and go back-

Emily Snyder: Yeah.

Erin Wetzel: ... to that theory issue? I'm wondering how your peers, colleagues, professors, how did they take it when you would kind of spit out this theory that you had gained such a vast knowledge of with Clay, or if you tried to bring that up, was it well received, or did people already know about Clay and his theories? Or what was that like? Sorry. And then we'll go onto what you did [crosstalk 00:26:52].

Emily Snyder: I think anybody that has tried to teach the theories in a very typical business setting, when people are thinking very traditional business mindsets, it's hard. So, so hard. And I was very conscientious of like academic ego with different professors, and so they didn't want to like shake the boat too much. But a few select professors or classmates knew more about Clay Christensen and his theories than they probably ever wanted to know. So [crosstalk 00:27:29]. There were pockets of people in places that I felt like I could share all of my heart about the theories, and then there were plenty of others that it would fall on deaf ears, which I think is very real in the business world.

Erin Wetzel: Yes. A lot of us have experienced that, where you need people to speak the language, and it's teaching them that language, and sometimes they get it and sometimes they don't. Okay. That's very interesting, so thanks for sharing that. Let's go back to your first, I guess, summer internship at business school.

Emily Snyder: So, trying to figure out at a job. One of the questions they asked from the career center or whatever it's called was, what do you want to wear to work everyday? And I thought that was the silliest question I'd ever heard in my life. And then as I started going to recruiting events and needing to wear heels and dress to the nines and look all fancy, I was like, "Oh, I'm too old. I don't want to-"

Erin Wetzel: Now I get what they're saying. I get why they asked you that.

Emily Snyder: I had seen the show, Fixer Upper. I had visited in Waco, because my sister lived near the area for a while. And so in the back of my head, I just thought, "I am really intrigued with Chip and Joanna Gaines and I want to wear what Joe wears." She wears jeans and Birkenstocks. [inaudible 00:28:56]. And they're doing really incredible things where they're making... I feel like making home and family socially acceptable and desirable, and I want to be a part of that cause. I've known for years that I don't just want a regular job, I want something that I can kind of put my whole heart and soul behind, and that is the cause of family. I think crosses politics, it crosses religions, it crosses everything, because family is something that everybody finds important.

Emily Snyder: I think there's so many unique ways that we find family and that safety net of where each other can discover who they are, I felt that with Clay and his true family, the Christiansen family, but then also the family that we created at work and his coworkers. And I felt that so much there, along with my own family, and the adoptive families that I feel like I've been able to tag along with in so many ways. So the cause of family is really important to me. And so I cold-called, I searched LinkedIn, trying to find somebody that I connect to at Magnolia in Waco, Texas and-

Erin Wetzel: Good for you.

Emily Snyder: ... they weren't very many people at Magnolia on LinkedIn. And so I just scoured and try to reach out and had a friend that kind of coached me on how to not be too persistent, but to be confidently persistent. And because after working at Clay's office, we know what anxious people look like and-

Erin Wetzel: We sure do.

Emily Snyder: ... sound like, and that it was not where I wanted to go, but-

Erin Wetzel: It was a balance. You're right.

Emily Snyder: Right, right. So finally, I was able to connect with somebody and ended up being in town, again, visiting my sister and brought Levine cookies from New York City as like, not peace offerings, but like bribe gifts, I guess, just to be like, "I'm truly interested."

Erin Wetzel: Please, at least talk to me.

Emily Snyder: Right. Right. And my sister, who's a graphic designer, made some quick business cards that matched the note cards, just kind of a very design-centric aspect, and so dropped them off and got a call or text later that night from the gentleman who was the chief strategy officer at the time who I'd been mainly trying to connect with and-

Erin Wetzel: Wow.

Emily Snyder: ... visited with him the next day, and it was a really beautiful conversation. And couple of weeks later, they offered me an internship and I came back after school, and it's been two years and it's been incredible.

Erin Wetzel: That's amazing. I can just see how you're the type of person that you do put your whole heart and soul into something, but to find you were so invested in Clay and his world, and now you've been able to find another place that you feel at home, it's amazing. So can you tell us, has there been any of the theories that you've been able to incorporate at Magnolia, or have they gotten on board with some of maybe jobs to be done or anything like that? How do they see it at Magnolia?

Emily Snyder: It's still very much startup mode in many regards at Magnolia, realizing how many different business models we have happening that are, most of them, less than five years old. So I've thought a lot about the business models theories and just how hard that is to change that, jobs to be done, for sure, is a huge one. We've done a number of jobs interviews. I think there's so... Just like everybody that takes and loves the theories, they're really tricky to help recalibrate how people are thinking when they're in a go forward mode and just like, there's so much to be done, it often can feel like a... not a hindrance, but like, how does actually apply. There's been creative ways that I've tried to use it, but also just trying to bring in ideas periodically when I know that people are in a spot to actually look for a solution.

Erin Wetzel: Sure.

Emily Snyder: Like, for one example, made a comment to a senior leader as we were thinking through why things are so hard with our magazine or with television, or all the different things that we were in, and I just said, "We're changing business models. We're asking to break the typical business models of the industry, and that's hard work." There was a forum, white paper, about business models, and that I got to help create a forum conversation about it and two-day experience, and so that... Those moments just have stuck out so much to... that have applied to real life of, "Oh yeah, we're asking people to... We can't innovate within this machine. We've got to do a small one outside of it, so that true innovation can happen." Just all that different realities-

Erin Wetzel: Sure. So autonomous units, and this is adding to your schools of experience, where most people are looking for not the right person, but do they really have the right skills of experience, so I can tell that Magnolia is also adding... you're adding that to your tool belt now, but you're also trying to implement some of these things from your previous life, I say, before being in Waco.

Emily Snyder: And deliberate versus emergent, I think-

Erin Wetzel: Absolutely. Yup.

Emily Snyder: We are definitely in an emergent world at Magnolia, but yet very deliberate about what we want to be at the end of the day, and the pathway to getting there is very flexible. I think about good money, bad money a lot. Just all of them come into play, which is why the BSSC course and all of the theories just play into each other so well, because it's not just building it, it's sustaining it, and all of them apply.

Erin Wetzel: Absolutely. So you heard it here, folks, Emily can speak to that too. That they all work together. In case you haven't noticed yet, or in case you haven't taken BSSC yet, they really do. It works. [inaudible 00:35:39] there is work. In our last few minutes here, I want to talk about how Clay was such a storyteller, and that stories were so important to him. And you and I and all the other assistants could probably name maybe like the top five stories that Clay used to tell a lot, and they were so good. And sometimes there were slight variations, but most of the time it was, he was trying to get a message across. I believe it was in his blood, but I also try and retell them like he did and I can't do it. So [crosstalk 00:36:10] what's your take on his stories?

Emily Snyder: No, that's funny, because I have thought about it, and as brilliant of a man, as a brilliant thinker as he was, I'm going to give a shout out to his wife about the power of his stories and his communication skills, because she would... When he would come home from work or working on his dissertation, because as you recall, he had all the kids, maybe Kate was born-

Erin Wetzel: Five of them. I think Kate was born during, the PhD, but-

Emily Snyder: I think you're right. Sorry, Kate [crosstalk 00:36:43]. But they were kids, and so he couldn't just kind of be a typical PhD student and just be in his own head. Came home, and Christine in her desire and efforts to make it a family affair and a family dialogue, would have him talk about what he had learned at the dinner table. And so how do you translate these complicated theories and things that he's studying into language for the seven-year-old and into dialogue that the ten-year-old can participate in. And so not that he probably didn't already have those tools to begin with, but I think Christine and her deliberateness and creating that family conversation and unity...

Emily Snyder: We're all sacrificing for this together, which means we're all going to be in it together. His ability to then have to explain it and have it make sense to the seven-year-old, so that the seven-year-old can bring insights and perspectives, I think is where so much of his power came from. I think that's where stories became such a vital part of his life. I think it was always so funny that he would refer to himself as Clay Christensen, and he always talked about himself in third person. But I think there's actually a really beautiful power in that concept, because he never assumed a we, he never assumed that his experience was anybody's experience. And he so often taught about the power of one and the factor of one.

Emily Snyder: That if it applied for this one instance and this one situation, then there were principles and lessons we learned from it. And I think he was quick to acknowledge, like, this is my world and this is my story. But in that, honored somebody else's and somebody else's story. He gave his all to every aspect of his life, which meant this role was such a unique one, because it touched every aspect of his life.

Emily Snyder: At his funeral, I remember just kind of taking a step back after I connected another group of people that I was like, "Wait, you don't know this person? Like, you two don't know each other, or you two don't know each other? Why in the world?" And realized what an amazing and humbling gift it was to be at the crossroads of all of the worlds that Clay Christensen ran in. And all the roads that came together in Clay's life, and got to be one of the very few people that knew all the other people in his world and in such a beautiful, unique way, and not just to make sure there wasn't a skunk or make sure that there was water for a meeting, but they got to love and cherish and embrace all these people as if I got to be Clay in those moments and to represent him well, the way he would want to interact with them and care for them.

Emily Snyder: That, on top of all the just... Sorry. Little moment of learning that I got to have with him. For those of you that have ever interacted and know just how deeply religious he was and how much he truly loved God, there were just really some beautiful conversations that happened in his office that just made it a tender spot. All of his life was... there was no separation, which I think is a reality of our worlds these days, that it all... To be the best employee, to be the best mother, it all just kind of blends together. And he was masterful at that. There were no off limits, and he knew how to blend them all well. And to get to be a person that got to participate it, but then also to have the one-on-one moments with him and the ups and the downs, it's just a really special place.

Erin Wetzel: It truly has been a privilege to work this closely with him, and I fully agree with you how he entrusted us to be around and love his people. And everyone was his people. He loved everyone and wanted to help. [crosstalk 00:41:17].

Emily Snyder: Well, and which has taught me so much about who I want to be as a leader. One thing that I thought was so beautiful after his funeral was how many memories were collected, and people just flooding that website that we created of memories of Clay, Which is so beautiful. And I also want to go a step farther in typical Clay fashion of like, well, what's... Go one more step. What's one more step? And just say, well, what lessons... and not so much from Clay, but what are lessons that people have learned that have changed their lifes? Because I think Clay would very much hate that they'd be lessons from Clay. But what did you learn from the theories? Or-

Erin Wetzel: Yes.

Emily Snyder: ... how have the theories changed the way you approach things that have changed the course of your life?

Erin Wetzel: Well, I think that's a question we can leave with all our listeners for everyone to ponder on and express. The memories of Clay website is still up and running, so if you feel like you have a memory that you haven't shared yet, or a new one, please share as many as you have. That Clay has impacted all of us so much, and words can't describe how much we miss him every day. But because of these lessons and because of the theories he taught us, he's always going to be with us. Everyone, take care of your families, take care of yourself during this hard time, and remember to send in any memories of Clay you have. The family will love to see those, and we'll catch you next time on The Disruptive Voice. Thanks Emily.

Emily Snyder: Thank you.

Clay Christensen: Thank you for listening to us at Disruptive Voice. If you like our show and want to learn more, please visit us at our website or leave us a review on iTunes. Until next time, good luck everybody.

Erin Wetzel: Emily and I are here representing all of Clay's assistants who have been so helpful to him in the past. We want to say hi to Janice and Lisa. And of course, Brittany, I want to say hi to you guys, and thank you for the legacy that you have set, thank you for everything you've done as well.