Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice

by Clayton M. Christensen

Much of the information needed to make decisions about solving for a job is found in the context of the struggle. We call that “passive data” because it has no voice or clear structure or champion or agenda. Passive data, by itself, doesn’t tell us what is going on in the world because the Job to Be Done doesn’t change much. Passive data is just unfiltered context. It’s always present, but it isn’t loud. In discovering an unfilled or poorly done job, managers are surrounded by nonconsumption and workarounds. They are immersed in the passive data of context. Familiar marketplace markers such as product sales, quality standards, and competitive benchmarks are all missing. Instead, signposts of innovation opportunity take the form of individual customers’ frustrations and undesirable tradeoffs and experiences. Making meaning out of the jumble of real-life experiences is not about tabulating data but about assembling the narrative that reveals the Job to Be Done. Innovators have to immerse themselves in the messy context of real life to figure out what potentially successful new products might offer to customers. In the early stage, managers are puzzle solvers, not number crunchers. Passive data does not broadcast itself loudly. You have to seek it out, put clues together, relentlessly ask why? But it’s critically important because it is the way to identify innovation opportunities. Here’s how the trouble starts: managers by their very nature respond to information—and negativ...