There is a quote attributed to the economist Theodore Levitt that I read like an epiphany:

“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.”

It is so obvious, yet mind blowing. It makes us reconsider all the inputs to the work. What is the experience? What is the outcome? What does the participant leave with?

Peter Drucker said:

The customer rarely buys what the business thinks it’s selling. Nobody pays for a ‘product’. What is paid for is satisfaction. The Company might think it sells products or provides services; the customer has a problem or a job to be done.

People don’t want drills. They want holes.

Solving the problem suddenly gets way more complicated, and way more interesting too. 

Disorganizers can use all their skills and tools to win: working backwards, small bets, squeezing the hivemind, their curiosity. Form follows function.

Footnote: cited in: Clayton Christensen (2016), The Clayton M. Christensen Reader. p. 46

This Much We Know.