Playing to Win

Outline

Playing to Win (2013) presents a practical approach to strategy built on five linked choices: your winning aspiration, where to play, how to win, the capabilities you need, and the management systems that support them. A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin draw on their years of work together at Procter & Gamble to show how clear strategic choices helped brands such as Olay and Bounty grow.

• Strategy is a set of clear choices, not a long plan or a list of goals.
• The approach rests on five linked choices: aspiration, where to play, how to win, capabilities, and management systems.
• Each choice depends on the others, so they need to fit together to work.
• You decide where to compete and how to win, rather than trying to compete everywhere.
• The authors drew on their work together at Procter & Gamble, where clear choices helped brands such as Olay and Bounty grow.

A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin are leading figures in business strategy. Lafley was the chairman and CEO of Procter & Gamble, where he led the company through a decade of strong growth. Martin is a Canadian business thinker and former dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, and his books include The Opposable Mind and A New Way to Think.