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Here are the key takeaways from the video "Understanding the Job" by Clayton Christensen, focusing on the "Jobs to be Done" theory:
- Products Are Hired for a Job: Christensen explains that customers "hire" products to fulfill a specific job in their lives. Understanding what job your product is being hired to do is crucial for innovation and effective product design.
- Traditional Market Research Often Misses the Mark: Standard approaches—like asking customers how to improve a product—can result in clear feedback, but these improvements may not increase sales if they don’t address the true underlying job the customer needs done.
- Deep Observation Uncovers Real Motivations: The research team discovered that many milkshakes were sold early in the morning to solo customers driving to work. This led to the realization that the "job" was to keep the driver occupied, stave off hunger until later in the morning, and fit conveniently in a car cupholder.
- Competitors Aren’t Always What You Expect: When understanding what customers "hire" for the job, the main competitors weren't other milkshakes. They included bananas, donuts, bagels, and even Snickers bars—anything that could fill the same need during the morning commute.
- Product Improvements Flow from Job Understanding: By identifying the job ("make my commute interesting and keep me full"), companies can focus improvements on what truly matters: making the milkshake thick and long-lasting, easy to consume with one hand, and maximizing convenience, rather than tweaking taste, price, or chunkiness for their own sake.
- Shift in Mindset: The "Jobs to be Done" framework encourages product managers and innovators to reframe customer needs. The right question isn’t, “How do we make this product better?” but, “What job is the customer trying to get done, and how can we help them do it better?”
Bottom Line: Understanding the real job your product is being hired to do reveals new opportunities for innovation and differentiation. This approach often uncovers needs and competitors that traditional frameworks miss, leading to more effective product solutions and marketing strategies1.
Transcrição
Hi, my name is Klay Christensen 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 of 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 milkshake so you'd buy more of them? Do you want it chocolatier, cheaper, chunkier, 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 commute 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 down there and stay for that 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. To 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 ah, I felt so guilty. I've 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 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.