David Duncan
Leading Thinker & Advisor on Innovation, Strategy & Transformation; Co-author with Clay Christensen, “Competing Against Luck”; Innosight Senior Partner
Meet David Duncan
Even the best-performing companies and senior leaders are challenged to innovate – repeatedly and strategically. David Duncan, who has consulted with top leaders at many of the world’s most iconic companies, is helping them navigate disruptive change, create sustainable growth and transform their organizations to thrive for the long-term.
Duncan is a senior partner at the global strategy and innovation consulting firm Innosight, where he leads the financial services and innovation capabilities practices. He has developed many innovative approaches to driving transformative growth in large organizations that are in widespread use today. Importantly, these approaches are not just theoretical, but are derived from over a decade working directly with companies to solve some of their hardest innovation and growth challenges.
A trusted and visionary advisor, Duncan is also co-author of two books and a number of influential articles, including the best-selling book “Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice” (HarperCollins, October 2016), co-authored with Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen. A groundbreaking book with the potential to reframe industries, “Competing Against Luck” is based on a simple yet profound idea: customers don’t buy products and services; they hire them to do a job. And understanding which jobs your customers need done is key to innovation success. Duncan is also co-author of the e-book, “Building a Growth Factory” (Harvard Business Press, November 2012) and several Harvard Business Review articles, including “Knowing When to Reinvent” (December 2015), co-authored with CEO of Aetna Mark Bertolini, and “Build an Innovation Engine in 90 Days” (December 2014).
Duncan has extensive experience designing and delivering customized workshops and development programs for leaders, and often gives speeches on topics related to innovation, growth and transformation. He has worked with Fortune 50 companies across the full spectrum of financial services industries, including banking, insurance, capital markets and transaction banking. He has also worked extensively across the healthcare sector, including with payers, providers, pharmaceutical and medical device companies. His focus is helping senior executives develop long-term growth strategies, often with an emphasis on transformation and renewal in the face of industry disruption. Duncan is equally involved in helping leaders to execute on strategy, and in helping companies to institutionalize new growth innovation capabilities through the design and deployment of a broad range of enablers.
A former McKinsey & Company consultant, Duncan graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Duke University and earned a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University.
Duncan is a senior partner at the global strategy and innovation consulting firm Innosight, where he leads the financial services and innovation capabilities practices. He has developed many innovative approaches to driving transformative growth in large organizations that are in widespread use today. Importantly, these approaches are not just theoretical, but are derived from over a decade working directly with companies to solve some of their hardest innovation and growth challenges.
A trusted and visionary advisor, Duncan is also co-author of two books and a number of influential articles, including the best-selling book “Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice” (HarperCollins, October 2016), co-authored with Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen. A groundbreaking book with the potential to reframe industries, “Competing Against Luck” is based on a simple yet profound idea: customers don’t buy products and services; they hire them to do a job. And understanding which jobs your customers need done is key to innovation success. Duncan is also co-author of the e-book, “Building a Growth Factory” (Harvard Business Press, November 2012) and several Harvard Business Review articles, including “Knowing When to Reinvent” (December 2015), co-authored with CEO of Aetna Mark Bertolini, and “Build an Innovation Engine in 90 Days” (December 2014).
Duncan has extensive experience designing and delivering customized workshops and development programs for leaders, and often gives speeches on topics related to innovation, growth and transformation. He has worked with Fortune 50 companies across the full spectrum of financial services industries, including banking, insurance, capital markets and transaction banking. He has also worked extensively across the healthcare sector, including with payers, providers, pharmaceutical and medical device companies. His focus is helping senior executives develop long-term growth strategies, often with an emphasis on transformation and renewal in the face of industry disruption. Duncan is equally involved in helping leaders to execute on strategy, and in helping companies to institutionalize new growth innovation capabilities through the design and deployment of a broad range of enablers.
A former McKinsey & Company consultant, Duncan graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Duke University and earned a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University.
Suggested Speaking Topics
Competing Against Luck: Making Innovation a Discipline, Not a Gamble
With the ever-increasing pace of change in today’s world, innovation as a driver of near-term competitive success and long-term performance is more important than ever. While most leaders would agree, few are satisfied with their innovation results. Despite enormous levels of spend on research, development and marketing, increasingly sophisticated innovation processes, and an army of academics, consultants and other gurus selling advice, success still appears far too dependent on the seemingly unpredictable behavior of both customers and competitors. In other words – on luck.
What’s missing, believes David Duncan, is an answer to the question that defines the quest for innovation success: what really causes a customer to purchase and use a product or service? Drawing on his groundbreaking book, co-authored with Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen, Duncan contends that customers don’t buy products and services; rather, they hire them to solve important jobs that arise in their lives. Would-be innovators must therefore seek first to understand a customer’s jobs, and then use that knowledge to develop solutions that nail the job perfectly.
In this highly interactive session, Duncan explains how to use Jobs to be Done thinking and methods to greatly enhance your success rates, identify entirely new growth opportunities, and drive enduring competitive advantage. He shares fascinating stories* of companies that have done this with great results, many drawn from his own experience working directly with leaders of some of the world’s most iconic companies. Throughout, he engages participants on how to apply the Jobs to be Done approach in their own contexts, enabling them to make real progress during the session and to leave with a clear set of action steps for unleashing the power of jobs in their organizations.
*Stories selected can be customized to the interests of a particular audience, including for any industry and for both B2C and B2B companies.
How to Understand What Business You Are Really In
“What business are you in?” Seems like a straightforward question, but how leaders answer has profound implications for how their organizations compete, innovate and grow. And yet many fall into the trap of defining themselves solely from the perspective of the products and services they sell – a myopic view that leads to flawed decision-making and leaves companies vulnerable to disruption. In this highly interactive presentation based on his best-selling book “Competing Against Luck,” co-authored with Clayton Christensen, David Duncan uses real-world stories to illustrate the power of defining the business you are in through the lens of the “jobs” your customers are trying to get done in their lives. This shift in perspective changes everything, expanding opportunities for growth and innovation, revealing who your true competitors are, and clarifying which emerging trends matter most. Throughout, Duncan leads participants to apply Jobs to be Done thinking to uncover fresh insights about their own businesses, and leaves them with specific actions to further implement these ideas.
How to Build a Culture of Innovation
Building a stronger culture of innovation is a goal of most leaders today. It’s a worthwhile aspiration, but progress toward it is elusive. This is due in part to the expression itself, a juxtaposition of two words (“culture” and “innovation”), each of which is vague and ambiguous; put them together and the problem is compounded. David Duncan introduces a new – and precise – definition for what a culture of innovation really is and the factors that create one, and applies it to real-world examples to explain why some organizations are more (or less) innovative than others. Throughout, he engages participants in a discussion to apply these ideas in their own context, and helps them to identify concrete actions they can take to make their own organizational cultures more innovative.
With the ever-increasing pace of change in today’s world, innovation as a driver of near-term competitive success and long-term performance is more important than ever. While most leaders would agree, few are satisfied with their innovation results. Despite enormous levels of spend on research, development and marketing, increasingly sophisticated innovation processes, and an army of academics, consultants and other gurus selling advice, success still appears far too dependent on the seemingly unpredictable behavior of both customers and competitors. In other words – on luck.
What’s missing, believes David Duncan, is an answer to the question that defines the quest for innovation success: what really causes a customer to purchase and use a product or service? Drawing on his groundbreaking book, co-authored with Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen, Duncan contends that customers don’t buy products and services; rather, they hire them to solve important jobs that arise in their lives. Would-be innovators must therefore seek first to understand a customer’s jobs, and then use that knowledge to develop solutions that nail the job perfectly.
In this highly interactive session, Duncan explains how to use Jobs to be Done thinking and methods to greatly enhance your success rates, identify entirely new growth opportunities, and drive enduring competitive advantage. He shares fascinating stories* of companies that have done this with great results, many drawn from his own experience working directly with leaders of some of the world’s most iconic companies. Throughout, he engages participants on how to apply the Jobs to be Done approach in their own contexts, enabling them to make real progress during the session and to leave with a clear set of action steps for unleashing the power of jobs in their organizations.
*Stories selected can be customized to the interests of a particular audience, including for any industry and for both B2C and B2B companies.
How to Understand What Business You Are Really In
“What business are you in?” Seems like a straightforward question, but how leaders answer has profound implications for how their organizations compete, innovate and grow. And yet many fall into the trap of defining themselves solely from the perspective of the products and services they sell – a myopic view that leads to flawed decision-making and leaves companies vulnerable to disruption. In this highly interactive presentation based on his best-selling book “Competing Against Luck,” co-authored with Clayton Christensen, David Duncan uses real-world stories to illustrate the power of defining the business you are in through the lens of the “jobs” your customers are trying to get done in their lives. This shift in perspective changes everything, expanding opportunities for growth and innovation, revealing who your true competitors are, and clarifying which emerging trends matter most. Throughout, Duncan leads participants to apply Jobs to be Done thinking to uncover fresh insights about their own businesses, and leaves them with specific actions to further implement these ideas.
How to Build a Culture of Innovation
Building a stronger culture of innovation is a goal of most leaders today. It’s a worthwhile aspiration, but progress toward it is elusive. This is due in part to the expression itself, a juxtaposition of two words (“culture” and “innovation”), each of which is vague and ambiguous; put them together and the problem is compounded. David Duncan introduces a new – and precise – definition for what a culture of innovation really is and the factors that create one, and applies it to real-world examples to explain why some organizations are more (or less) innovative than others. Throughout, he engages participants in a discussion to apply these ideas in their own context, and helps them to identify concrete actions they can take to make their own organizational cultures more innovative.
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