Apr 29, 2021

Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) in Purpose Statements

While scrolling through a number of lists outlining the ‘purpose', ‘vision' and ‘mission' of organisations, I spotted a pattern – some of them reference all three types of jobs from the "Jobs To Be Done" (JTBD) framework: Functional, Consumption and Emotional/Social jobs.

Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) is a powerful framework for developing products and understanding both the customer's specific goal, or “job,” and the thought processes that would lead customers to “hire” a product in order to complete jobs successfully.

Here's how the three jobs are defined according to the JTBD framework:

Functional job - This is defined as the underlying process that the job executor is attempting to undertake and complete in a given situation. The goal of any product is to help get a core functional job done better, faster and more cheaply than competing solutions.

Consumption job - They are what a customer has to undertake to utilise a solution. For example, if you are trying to buy a new t-shirt online, to use Amazon as a solution, you will have to interact with the website or the app. This interaction is referred to as a consumption job.

Emotional/Social job - Emotional jobs define how customers want to feel or avoid feeling as a result of executing the core functional job. Social jobs define how the customer wishes to be perceived by others. Let's take a look at a few examples.

LinkedIn

To connect the world's professionals and make them more productive and successful

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Job Keywords
Functional Productive
Consumption Connect
Emotional/Social Successful (professionals)

Spotify

We envision a cultural platform where professional creators can break free of their medium's constraints and where everyone can enjoy an immersive artistic experience that enables us to empathize with each other and to feel part of a greater whole.

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Job Keywords
Functional Creators can break free.
Everyone can enjoy.
Consumption Cultural platform
Emotional/Social Everyone can enjoy.
Empathise with each other.
Feel part of a greater whole

Innocent

Make natural, delicious food and drink that helps people live well and die old

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Job Keywords
Functional Die old
Consumption Food and drink
Emotional/Social Live well

Facebook

People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what's going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.

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Job Keywords
Functional Stay connected
Consumption Use Facebook
Emotional/Social Express what matters

Zoom

Video communications empowering people to accomplish more

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Job Keywords
Functional Accomplish more
Consumption Video communications
Emotional/Social Feeling empowered

Amazon

To be Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.

Amazon's statement is missing a reference to the emotional job. Perhaps, "where customers can find, discover, and enjoy anything they might want to buy online" might sound better

Scroll to view more
Job Keywords
Functional Want to buy online
Consumption Find and discover
Emotional/Social -

Tesla

To accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy.

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Job Keywords
Functional Sustainable energy
Consumption Accelerate
Emotional/Social World's transition

Patagonia

We're in business to save our home planet.

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Job Keywords
Functional Save
Consumption Business
Emotional/Social Home planet

How about your company's purpose, vision, or mission? Can you identify and list references to all three jobs for your organisation?

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About Max Antonov
I'm a father of three from Sydney, a Product Director and a Product Coach. I write about product management and run the Product Manager community.

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