Competing Against Luck with Karen Dillon

Karen Dillon, one of the authors from the book “Competing against Luck” joined us in a conversation to discuss the “jobs to be done” framework and why it is important about customer choice and innovation in disruption theory. She also discussed how organizations can be jobs focused and how companies should be listening to their customers and the circumstances when the theory fails.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

• Karen Dillon (@KarDillon, LinkedIn), author of “Competing against luck” & contributing editor of Harvard Business Review. [0:39]
  • How did you start your career? [1:20]
  • Throughout your career, what are the interesting lessons you can share with our audience? [1:50]
  • How did you end up collaborating with Clayton Christensen on two books, “How will you measure your life” and also “Competing against luck”? [2:58] 
• Competing Against Luck: The story of Innovation & Customer Choice (@competingvsluck) [4:22] 
  • What is the main thesis of the book? [4:22]
  • Who are the intended audience of the book? [6:18]
  • Can you define what a job means in the context of the book, and what does it mean “jobs to be done”? [6:58]
  • What is the relevance of jobs to be done theory to innovation and customer choice? [8:39]
  • How does one see where the jobs are? What are the essential elements that the business owner need to capture? [9:57]
  • Oftentimes, the conventional wisdom is to listen to your customers, what are the things you need to hear from them that they are not telling you? [13:01]
  • Can you share a concrete example to how jobs to be done are applied to companies seeking new innovation? [14:33]
    • Onstar, General Motors satellite system in the car as an example.
  • When does the jobs to be done theory fails? [18:32]

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The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bleongcw) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Altizen Desk on Indiegogo (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Also check out Ideal Workspace’s new standing desk, Altizen and sign up for their mailing list. Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, “The Beginning” from Red Cliff Soundtrack.