Playing to Win by A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin, published in 2013, is a practical book about what strategy is and how to make one. Lafley ran Procter & Gamble as CEO, and Martin was dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and advised him for years. The book uses their work at P&G to show that strategy comes down to a small number of hard, connected choices.
What is Playing to Win about?
The authors start with a complaint. Most companies call a budget, a vision statement or a list of projects a strategy, and then wonder why nothing changes. Lafley and Martin define strategy as an integrated set of choices that positions a company to win. The word that matters is choices: saying yes to one market or customer means saying no to others.
They organise those choices into a cascade of 5 questions. First, what winning looks like for you. Second, which markets, customers and channels you will compete in. Third, how you will beat rivals there, through lower cost or a clear difference. Fourth, which capabilities you need to pull that off. Fifth, which management systems and measures keep everything on track. Each answer has to fit the ones above and below it, and the book shows how P&G brands such as Olay, Bounty and Gillette went through that process.
The second half deals with method. The authors explain how to generate options, how to ask what would have to be true for each option to succeed, and how to test the conditions you doubt most. They also warn against common strategy mistakes, such as trying to be everything to everyone or treating a plan as a strategy.
What are the main lessons for founders?
- Define winning in your own terms. Write what success looks like in 3 years with a number and a customer group. A vague goal leads to vague choices.
- Say no on purpose. Choosing one customer segment and one channel feels risky, yet spreading a small team across many markets is riskier.
- Pick how you will win. You either serve customers at lower cost or offer something they value enough to pay more for. Trying to do both at once rarely works for a startup.
- Check that your capabilities match. A promise of white-glove service needs people and processes that deliver it. List the few capabilities your choice depends on and invest there first.
- Test the weakest assumption. For each option, list what would have to be true, then run a cheap test on the condition you trust least.
Who should read Playing to Win?
Founders who have found early traction and now face too many directions at once, and teams who argue about priorities in every meeting. It also works well for founders who join a larger company or advise one. The 5 questions fit on one page, which makes them easy to share with co-founders and investors.
Pre-idea founders can wait. The book assumes you already have a business and a market to choose from, and the P&G examples assume budgets and teams that early startups do not have.
How do you put Playing to Win to work this week?
- Answer the 5 questions for your startup on a single page, in no more than 2 sentences each.
- Under where to play, write 3 segments or channels you are choosing not to pursue this year.
- For your top option, list 4 conditions that would have to be true and design a one-week test for the shakiest one.
If you want help turning those answers into a written plan for your team or investors, try the free Business Plan Generator on Fe/male Switch.
Where does Playing to Win fall short?
The book is written from inside one of the largest consumer goods companies in the world. The examples involve global brands, research budgets and retail giants, so founders must scale the lessons down themselves. It focuses on the decision and says less about how strategy changes when markets move fast or when you have no data yet. The stories also come from the people who made the decisions, which makes them more flattering than an outside account would be. For a startup-sized view of finding a market nobody owns, pair it with Blue Ocean Strategy or Obviously Awesome.