Clayton Christensen on job to be done

hi my name is clay chrisan and I'm a professor at the Harvard Business School I brought with me a set of puzzles all related to Innovation we decided that the way we teach marketing is at the core of what makes motivation difficult to achieve the most helpful way we've thought of it so far is that we actually hire products to do things for us and understanding what job we have to do in our lives for which we would hire a product is really the key to cracking this problem of motivating customers to buy what we're

offering so I wanted just to tell you a story about a project we did for one of the big fast food restaurants they were trying to Goose up the sales their milkshakes they had just studied this problem up the Gazoo they brought in customers who fit the profile of the quintessential milkshake consumer and they'd give them samples and ask could you tell us how we can improve our milkshakes so you'd buy more of them do you want a chocola or cheaper chunkier or chewier they get very clear feedback they would then improve the milkshake on

those dimensions and it had no impact on sales or profits whatsoever so one of our colleagues went in with a different question on his mind and that was I wonder what job arises in people's lives that caused them to come to this restaurant to hire a milkshake so we stood in a restaurant for 18 hours one day and just took very careful data what time did they buy these milkshakes what were they wearing were they alone did they buy other food with it did they eat it in the restaurant or drive off with it it

turned out that nearly half of the milkshakes were sold before 8:00 in the morning the people who bought them were always alone it was the only thing they bought and they all got in the car and drove off with it so to figure out what job they were trying to hire it to do we came back the next day and stood outside the restaurant so we could confront these folks as they left milkshake in hand and in language that they could understand we essentially asked excuse me please but I got to sort this puzzle out

what job were you trying to do for yourself that caused you to come here and hire that milkshake and they'd struggle to answer so we'd then help them by asking other questions like well think about the last time you were in the same situation needing to get the same job done but you didn't come here to hire a milkshake what did you hire and then as we put all of their answers together it became clear that they all had the same job to do in the morning and that is they had a long and boring

drive to work and they just needed something to do while they drove to keep the community interesting one hand had to be on the wheel but somebody had given them another hand and there wasn't anything in it and they just needed something to do while they drove they weren't hungry yet but they knew they'd be hungry by 10:00 so they also wanted something that would just P down there and stay for their morning good question what do I hire when I do this job you know I've never framed the question that way before but last

Friday I hired a banana to do the job take my word for it never hire bananas they're gone in 3 minutes you're hungry by 7:30 if you promise not to tell my wife I probably hire Donuts twice a week but they don't do it well either they're gone fast they crumb all over my clothes they get my fingers gooey sometimes I hire Bagels but as you know they're so dry and tasteless then I have to steer the car with my knees while I'm putting jam on them and then if the phone rings we got a

crisis I remember I hired a Snickers bar once but oh I felt so guilty never hired Snickers again let me tell you when I come here and hire this milkshake it is so viscous that it easily takes me 20 minutes to suck it up that thin little straw who cares what the ingredients are I don't all I know is I'm full all morning and it fits right here in my cup holder well it turns out that the milkshake does the job better than any of the comp competitors which in the customer's minds are not Burger

King milkshakes but it's bananas Donuts Bagels Snickers bars coffee and so on but I hope you can see how if you understand the job how to improve the product becomes just obvious