playing-to-win

<blockquote>Leaders lead, and a good place to start leading is in strategy development for your business.</blockquote>A.G. Lafley led Proctor & Gamble for nearly a decade helping to double sales and quadruple profits.  After retiring, he recently stepped back into the leadership role.  He has teamed with such notables as Clayton Christensen in innovation, Tim Brown in design and others.  Here, he partners with Roger Martin (of Michael Porter's Monitor Group) to discuss P&G's approach to strategy.

That is the minor downside to this book—its enterprise focus and its P&G product-only orientation.  That said, we can all learn a lot about strategy from the leader of a company that has survived, grown and prospered since its founding in 1837.
<blockquote>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.</blockquote>Lafley and Martin outline a five-layer strategy framework:

~ What is your winning aspiration?
~ Where will you play?
~ How will you win?
~ What capabilities must be in place?
~ What management systems are required?

These five choices make up the <strong><i>strategic choice cascade</i></strong> that filters throughout the organization from top to bottom.

P&G product examples constitute the substance for explaining how the <strong><i>strategic choice cascade</i></strong> is implemented.  Among these examples the story of how Oil of Olay ("Oil of Old Lady") was repositioned for a younger market to "fight the seven signs of aging."

Members of your leadership team can benefit from a focused, iterative discussion answering the five strategy questions posed above.  This book offers expert guidance on how to carry out these strategy discussions and execute the resulting strategic plan.
<blockquote>All strategy entails risk.  But operating in a slow-growing, fast-changing, intensely competitive world without a strategy to guide you is far riskier.</blockquote>For a related discussion, check out <strong><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/273233175">Understanding Michael Porter</a>.</strong>  For a counter argument, check out <strong><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/790136802">The End of Competitive Advantage</a>.</strong>

Access Gene Babon's reviews of books on <strong>Business Leadership</strong> and <strong>Business Strategy</strong> at <strong><a href="https://www.pinterest.com/webapprentices/" target="_blank">Pinterest</a>.</strong>