The Job to Be Done: Why Relationships Matter More Than Results

“Green and Clean.” Stephen Covey, a popular educator, author, and speaker whose insights influenced many and have long endured, famously told of defining a yardwork task to his seven-year-old son as “green and clean.” The three-word assignment was a simple description of the job to be done. It was not overly prescriptive and avoided specifying every detail of the why and how. We are told that the son accepted the assignment feeling trusted and empowered rather than bossed around or condescended to.

“Green and clean” was a clear and considerate starting place for the gardening assignment, but the job to be done in the case of the son and the yardwork may have been even more important and profound than “green and clean.” The most important jobs to be done for that son may have included lessons on the value and satisfaction of work, the importance of contributing to the family and community, and, especially, the building of the relationship between that father and son. Ultimately, that relationship was more important than any lawn or flowerbed.

Attention to the higher levels of jobs to be done requires preplanning, careful thought, and even conscientious prayer. And certainly, at the lowest level, the job to be done always includes a commitment to do no harm. If the conversation and follow-through on that yardwork assignment had resulted in damage to the dignity of the son or his relationship with his dad, it might have been better to let the grass go without water for a while.

I regularly play pickleball with women from my neighborhood. The play is lively and full of fun. With the help of consistent practice, the level of our play has increased, as has our personal investment in our own shots. No one likes to hit the ball into the net or default on serves. But happily, the friendly athletes have remained more friendly than competitive. Their shared commitment to “the job to be done” continues to be working towards improved health, delighting in simple fun, and, especially, building friendships more than winning games. Those are the higher-level jobs to be done.

Under pressure and because of the importance of their stewardship, parents may occasionally forget the real job to be done in order to attend to an immediate problem to be solved or task to be completed with their children. Sometimes control feels like the most essential and efficient course of action. In the heat of the moment, a deep breath and a silent prayer can help a parent refocus on the dignity and potential of the child and the importance of instruction and mentoring more than on making a pronouncement or threatening a punishment.

Recently I observed with admiration as a mother listened without anger or impatience while her teenage son insisted that he would not attend his school’s outdoor camp. The dates had been set, the fees paid, and the room assignments made. She listened to his entire, angry tirade before she spoke. When he was finished, she engaged with respectful inquiry. She assured him that she understood the depth of his feelings, then she asked, “Are there any questions you have about what you will be doing at the camp that it would help to have answers to? How do you feel about your roommate assignment? Might someone else be more comfortable for you? Is there something about going to camp that worries you? How can I help you feel more enthusiastic about the week? Is there anything about the camp that sounds fun to you?”

By the time the son had considered and answered her authentic, compassionate questions, he had had a change of heart. Happily, he decided to reconsider his opposition to going. But more importantly, he felt valued and supported by his mother. Even if he had not ultimately attended the camp, their relationship was strengthened and deepened. That achievement was a more important job to be done than his attending the camp. Thoughtful, shared problem solving and mentored self-reliance would serve him better going forward than a fierce parental mandate and a compulsory week at an outdoor camp.

As I toured a new school in our neighborhood, I noted with admiration the feeling, structure, and interaction that occurred in that imaginative space. Rather than desks being aligned in straight rows with a whiteboard at the front of a rectangular room, the learning spaces were varied and inviting. Above the stairs, several colorful beanbags were arranged whimsically adjacent an irresistible rack of assorted books. Students were generously welcome to settle into those cushy beanbags to read all kinds of inviting literature from popular series to leatherbound classics to illustrated novels.

Another space was a small, well-stocked kitchen ready for the youngest students to help themselves to nutritious snacks whenever they were hungry, as long as they invited and served a fellow student, sat at the small round table for conversation while they ate together, then washed the dishes when they were finished.

The attention to inviting details was ubiquitous. I was so drawn to the whole welcoming concept that I could hardly bear to leave. I wanted to be six or ten or twelve and enrolled at that school. It was all so joyful. The job to be done was clearly to champion and facilitate a love of learning, and to empower young learners to use their time and to exercise their agency to advance that cause without heavy-handed adult coercion.

Another young student benefitted richly from wise and willing mentors who focused more on a high-level job to be done than on ease or tradition as they championed and facilitated the ambition of the student. The young man was a ninth-grade student in a school district that included ninth grade in their middle schools. Because he had both an enormous learning appetite and an unusual capacity for advanced math, he wanted to attend a math class that wasn’t offered at his middle school. Fortunately for him, with his attentive mother’s help, he met with his school counselor who agreed to administer tests to ascertain his readiness for the advanced class. Once he demonstrated his competence, the counselor did the research to learn that the class was taught at the neighborhood high school first period every day. The teacher of that class agreed to allow the young student to enroll with the high school students. His mother likewise agreed to provide the daily transportation to and from the middle school and the high school.

Thanks to all that extra-mile help and attention to the job to be done more than inflexible allegiance to expediency or tradition, that ambitious fellow recently took the AP calculus exam and earned the highest score possible. He will begin high school in the fall already having earned college credit for his advanced-level work. The experience left him with confidence in himself, increased appetite for learning, new knowledge, and gratitude for all those big-thinking people. They were focused on the job to be done, which was ultimately facilitating that eager learner and his opportunity to maximize his capacity. In the process, they showed him that there were loving adults in his life that would help him accomplish his worthy goals.

A consideration of the job to be done when making plans and decisions can be valuable in other settings as well. A restaurant in New York was reasonably successful, but the owners felt that they could do better still. They believed that their food was delicious and well prepared, but a more exhaustive, penetrating consideration of the job to be done caused them to conclude that people frequent restaurants significantly for the food, but they also come for other things. They come for hospitality, service, and creating unforgettable experiences. With that deepened commitment to the job to be done as their motivation, they adopted additional guidelines for everything they did at the restaurant. Among their guiding mantras were:

1. Hospitality is not just about doing things right. It is about making people feel great.
2. Being right is not the same thing as being effective.
3. It’s not about what you do for your guests (spouses, children, students, friends, etc.), it’s about how you make them feel.
4. Make the choice to be excellent – on purpose.
5. Repetition does not make something less special. Familiarity does not make something less important. Rituals and details create magic.

With the help of attention to the job to be done in a comprehensive, thoughtful way, that restaurant achieved top ratings in every category.

(“Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect,” by Will Guidara, Penguin Publishing Group, 2022)

St. Francis said, “A person who works with his hands is a laborer. A person who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. A person who works with his hands, head, and heart is an artist.”

As we engage in worthy tasks, the result of our engagement and the lasting importance of it will be magnified and dignified when we consider and act informed and motivated by the real job to be done. We will advance from defining our field of labor as simply one of watering lawns, winning pickleball games, imposing control, downloading information, or serving food. We will think bigger and better as we embrace the job to be done as that of empowering others, building relationships, facilitating wise use of agency, championing learning and growth, and offering “unreasonable hospitality.” The resulting breadth and depth of understanding and motivation will richly employ “hands, head, and heart,” and enable us to be artists working with the Master Creator as our inspiration.