The Hidden Flaw in Customer Focus That Stalls Growth
Every year, companies pour billions into innovation. And every year, much of that investment is wasted. Not because leaders lack intelligence or resources, but because they are looking through the wrong lens. They look at customers as suppliers delivering products or services, rather than as consumers trying to get a job done.
Executives are usually deeply customer-focused. They know their customers in all kinds of detail such as demographics, psychographics, attitudes, behaviors, and what they think are their customers’ needs. This kind of information can be useful for marketing and sales. It tells you who your customer is and how to reach them.
But for innovation, this kind of customer-focus is like studying the ocean. It is vast and endlessly interesting, but it does not tell you where the fish are. Knowing who your customers are and how they behave will not explain why they choose one solution over another. It produces descriptions and correlations, not causal insight.
Customer-Focus in Its Rightful Place
Customer-focus is essential for building strong companies. Leaders across business and customer experience have long emphasized the importance of putting the customer at the center of strategy and culture. Understanding customers’ needs and preferences is critical for loyalty, experience, and brand strength.
But for innovation, customer-focus without precision wastes resources. Too often, companies define needs as wants, preferences, or expectations. These can guide service or brand improvements, but they do not explain why customers hire one solution over another. They describe correlations, not causes.
The Job as the Right Lens
Precision comes from asking a different question: what job is the customer trying to get done? A job is the progress someone is trying to make in a given circumstance. Unlike products, customer profiles, or business models, jobs remain stable even as markets and technologies change.
Clayton Christensen made this point clear in The Innovator’s Solution: companies that study jobs and outcomes avoid the trap of chasing misleading signals. Demographics, feature requests, or usage data may appear to explain behavior, but they do not predict it. Jobs and outcomes reveal the causal drivers of choice. That precision turns innovation from guesswork into a repeatable, predictable process.
Desired Outcomes: The Metrics That Matter
Understanding the job is essential, but it is not enough. Customers also have desired outcomes, the metrics they use to determine how well a product or service is helping them get the job done. These outcomes are how customers define success.
For example, in the job of preparing for a business trip, a desired outcome might be “reduce the likelihood of forgetting an essential item.” Another might be “minimize the time it takes to pack everything needed for the trip.” When these outcomes are underserved by current products, services, or ad hoc solutions, they become opportunities for innovation and growth.
Uncovering underserved outcomes is critical. It shows leaders where customers still struggle with their own solutions and with competing offerings. Products and services that address these gaps directly deliver differentiated value.
A Disciplined Way Forward
The lesson is clear: for marketing, understanding the customer is useful. For innovation, it is not enough. If you want to consistently create products with strong market fit, you must look through the right lens. Study the job the customer is trying to get done, and measure success through the outcomes they care about. These concepts, jobs and desired outcomes, were pioneered by Tony Ulwick and Strategyn through Outcome-Driven Innovation® (ODI).
Lean JTBD OS™ is a simple, accessible, qualitative, AI-augmented operating system for leaders and innovation professionals who want the core benefits of Jobs Thinking in the most direct way possible to achieve their business objectives. It provides a disciplined, ISO-aligned method to eliminate guesswork, focus on jobs and outcomes, and drive growth with confidence. By doing so, Lean JTBD OS™ complements Outcome-Driven Innovation® (ODI), extending the benefits of Jobs Thinking into markets and organizations that otherwise would not apply it.
I am creating an ISO-certified, online, self-paced Level 1 course on Lean JTBD OS™ with the Global Innovation Management Institute (GIMI). It will be available to GIMI members.
👉 Want to be among the first to know when the course launches? Email me at [email protected] and I’ll add you to my early notification list.
