Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works

I found the authors' break down of what strategy is quite compelling. Throughout the book, they present a simplified framework to tackle strategy (what winning is, where to play, how to win, which capabilities and management systems are needed) and provide real world examples of how these concepts and implementations played out at P&G. Overall, I think it's a great guide to strategic thinking, especially in a VUCA environment (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous), which I agree with the authors, is the new normal for today's businesses. Quotes: - Too often, CEOs in particular will allow what is urgent to crowd out what is really important. - Strategy can seem mystical and mysterious. It isn’t. It is easily defined. It is a set of choices about winning.

Ten years after this book was published in 2013, it has proven to be a timeless, business classic. Here are just a few of the many, many very valuable takeaways: 1. The book was written by strategic experts: The former chairman and CEO of Procter & Gamble, who helped his company grow by leaps and bounds, and the consultant who acted as his thinking partner. Both were influenced by the famous business strategist Michael Porter. Adding on a number of the authors’ own well-acclaimed ideas, the book is essentially “Porter in Action” and in interesting story form. 2. Here is the authors’ definition of strategy: “Strategy is an integrated set of choices that uniquely positions the firm in its industry so as to create sustainable advantage and superior value relative to the competition.” 3. Strategy is the answer to these five interrelated questions (leading to the choices you make): a. “What is your winning aspiration [strongly desired goal or objective] (the purpose of your enterprise, its motivation aspiration)?” b. “Where will you play (a playing field where you can achieve that aspiration)?” c. “How will you win (the way you will win on the chosen playing field)?” [b & c are key!] d. “What [core] capabilities must be in place (the set and configuration of capabilities required to win in the chosen way)?” e. “What management systems are required (the systems and measures that enable the capabilities and support the choices)?” 4. The book was written in case study form, typical of a Harvard Business School approach. It looks at a number of key, well-known P&G products the authors strategized about, going through each strategy in detail, and showing you the myriad considerations (what to do and what not to do) for each. 5. Look for synergy, “reinforcing rods,” etc. in all the parts of your strategy. 6. Run true experiments, testing, and measuring the results of your actions. Importantly, start with a prediction or hypothesis and see if it proves true, and if not, why not. Learn! 7. Of critical importance, ask the right question: “What would have to be true [for the strategy to work] (what came to be the heart of the consultant author’s practice)? 8. Strategizing is an endless practice! Bottom-line: The authors show you the strategic principles of exactly how they played and won big, techniques scalable from a giant company like Proctor and Gamble down to your own small business proprietorship. Highly recommended! Of possible interest, a book on winning strategies used throughout history by 87 other master strategists Strategic Advantage: How to Win in War, Business, and Life

A very good book on strategy for two reasons: - it explains what strategy is, why is needed and how to build one for your company, with frameworks and models to help you throughout the process - it does the above in a concise and simple manner, using plain vocabulary and language everyone can understand, even if you're not into management. I'm a pragmatic person. While I value the theoretical explanations on such topics like this one, I need to see how to put those into action so results can appear. This book contains advice that can be implemented as you go through the process of creating your strategy. It can really help you taking decisions, which is the core of making a strategy and put it in place. Reason for four stars and not five is that all examples taken are from a single company (P&G). While I do appreciate the complexity of its scale and problems, it is also very singular in many aspects. For a methodology to be fully tested and proven, I believe it needs to be put through other scenarios and companies, to then see the different results. That you won't find on this book. But it still is worth reading for anyone wanting to know how to create a strategy.

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Another basic book in your Strategy collection, Playing to Win is a framework which could be deemed as a standard toda almost.

One of my favourite strategy books. If you want to learn how to formulate and implement strategy like the authors did in P&G, this is the book. The strategy choice cascade is a particularly helpful tool to use when formulating strategy.

Every once in a long while you come across a thinker who has such a magnificent command of the facts, wide ranging intellectual creativity, but most of all clarity of expression that you simply think –‘of course – that’s amazing - why didn’t I think of that!’. Roger Martin is one of those thinkers who can review the world of business and strategy with intellectual rigor and convey it in such a clear, convincing way you remember his key arguments years later. In Playing To Win, Roger Martin teams up with A.G. Lafley to explain the process of creating strategic decisions told through the story of the strategic decision making at P&G while A.G.Lafley was CEO and Roger Martin was his chief outside strategic advisor. At a time when many executives would synonymise strategy with financial planning, or creation of yearly goals, Lafley and Martin remind us that strategy boils down to two questions: ‘where to play?’ and ‘how to win?’ and then making specific choices. In Martin and Lafley’s words: “A strategy is a coordinated and integrated set of where-to-play, how-to-win, core capability, and management system choices that uniquely meet a customer’s needs…it is only through making and acting on choices that you can win. Yes, clear, tough choices force your hand and confine you to a path. But they also free you to focus on what matters.” In the penultimate chapter, Martin and Lafley describe in detail their techniques to think through strategic issues in a way that leads to real decisions, not rafts of analyst reports and is the only method Martin now uses. I won’t spoil what is perhaps the most valuable part of the book, but suffice to say that once I started this chapter I could not put down the book and despite a long week, read late into the night. Playing to Win: How strategy really works is nothing short of brilliant, and if you are a strategist, or just a manager trying to figure out how to grow or turn around your business you should have a dog-eared copy on your bookshelf next to Michael Porter’s Competitive Strategy.