Review: Playing to Win

If strategy is about creating a competitive advantage that allows a firm to win, then pinpointing your strategy to just a few choices will dramatically increase your chances of success.

| January 07, 2013

Playing to Win How Strategy Really Works

By A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin
Harvard Business Review Press,
272 Pages; $27

If strategy is about creating a competitive advantage that allows a firm to win, then pinpointing your strategy to just a few choices will dramatically increase your chances of success. This is especially true in the volatile and complex environment that has become the norm for all of us. Why then, according to A. G. Lafley, former CEO of Procter & Gamble, and Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management, do most firms shy away from these difficult strategic choices and settle instead for false approaches that can lead to irreversible blunders? It's a puzzling conundrum for sure, and one the authors set out to solve in Playing to Win . It all boils down to strategy—or a lack of it. And one of the biggest downfalls companies make? Leaning too much on strategy consultants to make the tough choices. Ouch.

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