Review of
Instaread Summary, Analysis & Review of Clayton M.
Christensen’s, Karen Dillon’s, Taddy Hall’s, & David S. Duncan’s Competing Against Luck The Story of
Innovation and Customer Choice
Four out of five stars
Early in the
summary, there is the core statement:
“The Jobs Theory maintains that successful products
must answer an unsatisfied customer need and the producer must understand why
the customer has this need.”
Shortly after
this, the term “job” is used to refer to the utility that is derived from
objects or services. This is articulated in key takeaway one:
“Business leaders must understand the job their
product or service seeks to fill and, by doing so, learn why a consumer will
hire or fire it.”
I found myself
puzzled over this, when the Jobs Theory was first mentioned, I considered it a
reference to Steve Jobs, the definition certainly fits Jobs’ style. Yet, once
it was clear that the term “job” was used in such a broad manner, I considered
it possible that the phrase “Jobs Theory” was just a capitalization of the
generic use of the word “job.” After
reading the summary, I still don’t know for certain, but the evidence indicates
that it is the latter. A simple definition of the phrase “Jobs Theory” would
have removed all doubt.
One of the
major reasons that I reached this conclusion is key takeaway four. The takeaway
is:
“A business cannot create new jobs for its products.
Instead, success is based on discovering a job and creating a product that fits
it.”
The first two sentences of the takeaway are:
“Jobs do not change over time. Solutions and products
to fill these jobs, however, do change.”
That lack of
clarity aside, this summary raises some significant points about how one breaks
out of the morass and develops products that fill needs (jobs) that no one knew
existed. In that aspect, the summary makes the book sound interesting.
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