Playing to Win

How Strategy Really Works

by A.G. Lafley & Roger L. Martin

4.5(2,758 ratings)

11 min read

Brief overview

This book explores how a clear set of strategic choices—and the discipline to act on them—can transform any organization. It shows why creating a winning approach depends on identifying where to compete, how to excel there, and which capabilities and systems are needed to drive success. Expect to learn practical frameworks that simplify strategic thinking and encourage bold, effective decision-making.

Introduction

Strategy is more than a lofty vision—it’s about making the right choices on where and how to compete. In an ever-shifting market landscape, this means focusing on a clear mission, honing critical strengths, and identifying which customers to serve. By narrowing your priorities, you can concentrate on delivering real value and standing out against fierce rivals.

Throughout these pages, you’ll see that great strategy hinges on asking five crucial questions. The essence of strategic leadership becomes empowering your teams to internalize these questions so that every decision advances you closer to a defined win. This proactive approach helps organizations avoid the tempting but dangerous pitfall of trying to do everything at once.

In the stories ahead, you’ll meet familiar brands that reinvented themselves by stepping back, making bold calls, and leveraging their strongest capabilities. Likewise, you’ll learn how to test assumptions thoroughly, ensuring that both vision and practicality sustain your path to a profitable future.

Defining Winning

Winning is more than increasing market share. It centers on delighting your target consumers better than alternatives and delivering sustained returns for the company. Start with articulating bold aspirations—goals that capture how you’ll improve customers’ lives while achieving healthy profits and competitive advantages.

A strong aspiration clarifies priorities and energizes the workforce. People at every level can measure decisions against it: if a certain project or product fails to steward you closer to this goal, it likely wastes precious resources. While sales figures and market percentages offer snapshots of performance, they are insufficient alone.

Instead, define winning through consumer-centric metrics, such as loyalty or recommendation propensity. By balancing these measures with financial outcomes, you get a more nuanced sense of whether you are truly outpacing rivals. Aligning on a robust, widely understood definition of winning ensures that even as the business evolves, the entire organization stays focused on what ultimately matters.

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What is Playing to Win about?

"Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works," by celebrated authors A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin, provides a compelling exploration into the realm of strategic thinking. This essential guidebook deciphers the strategic process by offering a clear, practical framework that allows businesses to achieve genuine success through well-articulated choices. By examining real-life case studies, such as Olay's transformative journey into a market leader, the authors illustrate how critical choices regarding where to play and how to win dictate the path to unparalleled excellence.

The book centers on the assertion that strategic triumph doesn't come from trying to do everything at once. Instead, it requires making purposeful, bold choices and having the discipline to see them through. Lafley and Martin emphasize the importance of aligning capabilities with strategic objectives, ensuring every decision steers the organization towards its broader aspirations. "Playing to Win" stands as a blueprint for leaders who aim to embed strategic decision-making into the DNA of their organizations.

Review of Playing to Win

"Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works" succeeds by demystifying the strategic landscape with clear, actionable insights. Laid out in a vivid narrative, the book's most potent strength lies in its ability to simplify otherwise complex strategic concepts into digestible frameworks. Lafley and Martin's five-question approach to strategy stands as a hallmark of clarity and utility, providing business leaders with a roadmap to make confident choices by asking the right questions.

The pragmatic application of these frameworks is evident in the transformative case studies provided, most notably the resurgence of Olay. These real-world examples illustrate how organizations can harness strategic thinking to achieve significant market success. Furthermore, the authors' writing is accessible yet profound, combining professional insight with an engaging narrative style that maintains reader interest throughout.

For readers seeking to understand and implement effective strategies, this book challenges conventional approaches and encourages leaders to focus on choices that distinguish their organization in competitive landscapes. "Playing to Win" is essential reading for anyone determined to elevate their business strategy into a strategic advantage, making it a vital addition to any leader's personal library.

Who should read Playing to Win?

**Corporate Strategists** seeking a structured approach to strategic decision-making.
**Business Leaders** aiming to align their organization’s capabilities with strategic goals.
**Entrepreneurs** looking to distinguish their startups through focused market strategies.
**Marketing Professionals** who want to understand the strategic backbone supporting brand positioning.
**MBA Students** keen to learn practical applications of strategic frameworks used by industry leaders.

About the author

A.G. Lafley, former CEO of Procter & Gamble, and Roger L. Martin, Professor Emeritus and former Dean of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, co-authored "Playing to Win". Lafley led P&G from 2000 to 2009, doubling its sales, quadrupling its profits, and increasing its market value by over $100 billion. Martin, a trusted strategy adviser to CEOs worldwide, has written eleven books and received several Thinkers50 awards, including the 2013 Book Award for "Playing to Win" and the 2015 Book Award for "Getting Beyond Better".