The foremost authority on innovation and growth presents a path-breaking book every company needs to transform innovation from a game of chance to one in which they develop products and services customers not only want to buy, but are willing to pay premium prices for.

How do companies 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 hit and miss? Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen has the answer. A generation ago, Christensen revolutionized business with his groundbreaking theory of disruptive innovation. Now, he goes further, offering powerful new insights.

After years of research, Christensen and his co-authors have come to one critical conclusion: our long held maxim--that understanding the customer is the crux of innovation--is wrong. Customers don't buy products or services; they "hire" them to do a job. Understanding customers does not drive innovation success, he argues. 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, Airbnb, and Chobani yogurt, to name just a few. But this book is not about celebrating these successes--it's about predicting new ones.

Christensen, Hall, Dillon, and Duncan contend that by understanding what causes customers to "hire" a product or service, any business can improve its 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 and miss efforts.

This book carefully lays down the authors' provocative framework, providing a comprehensive explanation of the theory and why it is predictive, how to use it in the real world--and, most importantly, how not to squander the insights it provides.

【美】克莱顿·克里斯坦森（Clayton M.Christensen）

《创新者的窘境》《创新者的解答》等书作者。哈佛大学商学院商业管理教授，Innosight公司创始人，曾两次获得“麦肯锡奖”。

【美】泰迪•霍尔（Taddy Hall）

剑桥集团负责人，尼尔森公司突破性创新计划领头人。协助资深高管打造成功的产品，并对创新方式做出改进。另外，他还作为非营利性组织Endeavor的顾问与新兴市场中的管理者进行广泛的合作。

【美】凯伦•迪伦（Karen Dillon）

《哈佛商业评论》前编辑，《纽约时报》畅销书《生命该如何度量》的合著者。毕业于康奈尔大学及西北大学麦迪尔新闻学院。

【美】戴维•S.邓肯（David S.Duncan）

Innosigh资深合伙人，创新策略和发展方面的顶尖思想家兼顾问，帮助资深高管抵御颠覆性剧变的侵袭，打造可持续性的发展，并帮助这些企业实现转变，从而长期保持活力。毕业于杜克大学，获得哈佛大学物理学博士学位。