How do leaders know how to grow? How can they create products that they are sure customers want
to buy? Can innovation be more than a game of chance? The foremost authority on innovation and
growth Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen and his coauthors Taddy Hall
Karen Dillon and David S. Duncan have the answer. A generation ago Christensen revolutionized
business with his groundbreaking theory of disruption?a way to predict how competitors will
respond to different types of innovation. In this book he examines the other side of the
puzzle: what causes growth and how to create it. After years of research Christensen Hall
Dillon and Duncan have come to one critical conclusion: our long-held maxim?that the crux of
innovation is knowing more and more about the customer?is wrong. Customers don't simply buy
products or services they ?hire? them to do a job. Understanding customers does not drive
innovation success the authors argue. Understanding customer jobs does. The ?Jobs to Be Done?
approach can be seen in some of the world's most respected companies and fast-growing startups
including Amazon Intuit Uber and Airbnb to name just a few. But this book is not about
celebrating these successes?it's about predicting new ones. Christensen and his coauthors
contend that by understanding what causes customers to ?hire? a product or service any manager
can improve their innovation track record creating products that customers not only want to
hire but that they'll pay premium prices to bring into their lives. Jobs theory offers new
hope for growth to companies frustrated by their hit-or-miss efforts. This book carefully lays
down the authors' provocative framework providing a comprehensive explanation of the theory
why it's predictive and most important how to use it to improve innovation in the real
world.
