Why Walk?

At my day job in the technology business, one of the people I talk about too much about is former Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen - specifically, his Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) hypothesis. While he is perhaps best known for his work on the Innovator’s Dilemma, the former is his contribution that I use the most on a day to day basis.

Fair warning, in fact: once you’ve internalized the idea, you end up seeing it everywhere.

Simply stated, JBTD is the idea that every product gets “hired” to do a “job.” One of the simple examples involves fast food. If you’re McDonald’s, you want to talk about your egg sandwich in terms of its components - the cheese, the egg, the sausage or bacon, etc. If you’re Dunkin’ Donuts, you want to focus on your, well, donuts, and whatever a donut’s attributes might be. But that’s thinking from the product, forward.

JBTD requires you to think backwards from what the customer is actually doing with your product. Think: Apple marketing the iPhone not using the chip’s clockspeed, the RAM or even the camera’s megapixels, but rather “check out the sweet pictures it can take.”

In the case of fast food breakfast options, then, a product might be “hired” to do not only the “job” of being breakfast, but also to be a breakfast that can be eaten on a commute without being a mess. To be a breakfast that can be eaten standing up on a subway. To be a breakfast that ticks particular boxes with respect to protein content or other nutritional requirements. And so on.

All of which is a byzantine and (unfortunately typical) overlong way of explaining how I got into walking and why I love walking.

When I first started walking, the “job” was simple: getting in some basic movement while I recovered from some minor running inflicted injury - something in my back, if I remember right. And if I was going to move, I might as well do it walking across the bridge to our island, because it’s beautiful. Enter job #2. As I began walking for longer periods of time, I went from primarily listening to podcasts to audiobooks and work content - listen-only briefings, conference talks and so on. Jobs #3 and #4, then.

After I got used to walking regularly on our island - and people got used to me doing that - I started to get stopped by other islanders: in their cars (my favorite was a tiny thumbs up that emerged from the back seat of a Volvo station wagon while I was walking in the rain), doing yard work or walking by me on their own. Walking, it turns out, is an under-appreciated method for getting to know your neighbors - and occasionally helping them check to make sure their furnace vent is clear while they’re raking snow off of their roof.

Job #5, in the books.

Eventually, as my distances progressed, I started to lose weight. Ultimately I dropped almost a third of my bodyweight. Not strictly because of walking, to be sure, but it played a key role, and almost certainly the key role.

Job #6.

Maybe the most unexpected job walking accomplished for me is providing a sense of adventure. As someone who works from home except when I travel, my day to day routine is just that, routine (it probably doesn’t help that I eat literally the same thing for lunch every day). Other than the fact that Poseidon hates me with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns and all hell breaks loose when I travel, my average workday is, like a lot of people, without much variation and characterized by long stretches of typing and reading interspersed with a large dose of Zoom.

None of which tends to make you feel particularly alive. At least in my experience.

Going for a walk in -5F degree temperatures, on the other hand, has a way of waking you up. Quickly. As does heading out in 50 MPH winds, 2 inches of rain or both at the same time. If you work an office job and are generally isolated from the elements, there is nothing more guaranteed to bring you back down to earth than prolonged and extreme exposure to said elements.

Job #7.

Anyway, you can see where this is going. Walking is an activity that can tick a lot of boxes beyond just exercise. It can give you time to think, or time to escape from thinking. It can get you out into nature, or into parts of a city you’ve never seen before. It can give you the opportunity to become friends with a local murder of crows. Walking, just by the experience of being out in a dark, cold morning as the sun rises just up ahead while you walk towards it, can forcibly take you out of your day and provide perspective.

All of which hopefully helps explain three things: why I walk, why you might like walking too, and why explaining to other people why you walk can be a little complicated.

Oh, and maybe why this newsletter exists.

Until next time, then, make sure you get out for a walk. The jobs you hire walking for will undoubtedly be different than mine, but I guarantee you’ll find some job it can do for you.

Enjoy.

• sog