Playing to Win · Alan G.Lafley · 2013
This book offers an easy-to-understand strategy framework with just 5 questions and plenty of practical tips. It presents a straightforward and non-controversial view on strategy creation that aligns with existing literature, drawing heavily from Michael Porter's earlier work.
Key Highlights
Strategy is fundamentally about making specific, deliberate choices that create a sustainable competitive advantage. A clear vision or a well-organised plan is helpful, but neither alone qualifies as strategy. True strategy goes beyond generic statements and instead revolves around five interlocking decisions: defining a winning aspiration, identifying where to play, determining how to win, building core capabilities, and establishing management systems that reinforce those choices.
A winning aspiration is more than a mission statement. It paints a vivid picture of what genuine success looks like, keeping the organisation focused on customer needs rather than just products or internal processes. Leaders who aim merely to "stay in the game" risk sinking resources into half-measures. By contrast, those who play to win accept that some trade-offs must be made. In other words, doing some things exceptionally well means consciously choosing not to do others.
Once a company knows its ultimate goal, it must decide where to play. This entails picking specific markets, customer segments, or product categories that best fit the firm's strengths. Spreading resources across all segments typically results in mediocrity. Instead, uncovering underserved niches or unexpected angles can allow a smaller player to flourish alongside larger competitors. These choices require ruthless clarity: in a highly competitive environment, half-hearted attempts to win in all places lead to wasted energy and diluted efforts.
Deciding how to win is about creating or delivering superior value in a way that others cannot easily imitate. A business may lead on cost, finding efficiencies that let it offer comparable products at a lower price, or excel at differentiation, commanding a premium by offering unique features or service. This approach must align closely with where the firm has chosen to focus and the special capabilities it possesses. Even the best technology or product idea can fail without a clear plan for building advantage. The right path might also involve new business models or unexpected partnerships if these secure the desired position without direct warfare against entrenched rivals.
Core capabilities breathe life into where-to-play and how-to-win decisions. They form an integrated activity system of complementary skills and assets that together create something competitors find tough to replicate. Such systems must pass three main tests: they must be feasible (the company can actually build them), distinctive (they aren't easily copied), and defensible (the firm can adjust or reinforce them if attacked). When acquiring another business, for instance, a good strategic fit emerges if the combined companies share capabilities that mutually strengthen each other, enabling a broader or faster route to winning.
Yet even the strongest set of choices can collapse without supportive management systems. Leaders need reliable processes for discussing strategy candidly, clarifying who does what, and measuring tangible outcomes. Far from rubber-stamp gatherings, these strategy sessions should encourage "assertive inquiry," where team members clearly articulate their own reasoning while seeking to understand others' views. Tools like a simple one-page strategy document or consistent performance metrics help keep day-to-day decisions anchored to core strategic choices. By calibrating which initiatives work or fall short, organisations stay agile and adjust before results deteriorate.
Another dimension is a thorough understanding of the environment. Organisations must analyse both channel and end consumers' changing desires, carefully mapping where the biggest opportunities lie. This often requires rethinking how the industry is segmented, since new consumer needs or emerging technologies can form previously unrecognised profit pools. Leadership teams also need a frank assessment of their own capabilities and costs relative to competitors. Plus, they must anticipate how rivals may counter. No matter how promising a strategy looks in isolation, it will face scrutiny if another player can neutralise it with a swift response.
Rather than hunting for the single "correct" plan, an iterative approach asks "What would have to be true?" for different strategic possibilities. Through this question, a leadership team pinpoints which assumptions must hold in order for each option to succeed. Then they test the riskiest assumptions first. Should a critical assumption fail, they discard that option early, saving time and resources. By focusing on data rather than opinion, and by ensuring sceptics' concerns get tested, the team builds genuine commitment around whichever course remains viable.
Though a robust strategy improves the odds of success, certain traps frequently undermine it. These include trying to do everything at once, battling the largest competitor directly, opening multiple fronts simultaneously, blindly serving all customers, issuing lofty missions with no follow-through, or copying generic industry tactics. In contrast, winning strategies exhibit telltale signs: they are grounded in a distinctive system of activities, attract loyal customers baffling to outsiders, allow competitors to profit elsewhere (reducing attacks), yield resource surpluses for reinvestment, deflect direct challenges, and inspire customers to request new innovations from you first.
Ultimately, no strategy remains static. Markets shift, technologies evolve, and customer preferences transform. Leaders must treat strategy as an ongoing discipline rather than a static plan on paper. By constantly reapplying the five core choices, employing rigorous analyses of industry conditions, and validating assumptions about how to win, organisations can keep refining their advantage. Embracing such strategic thinking—clear aspirations, sharp where-to-play decisions, credible how-to-win approaches, integrated capabilities, and strong management systems—brings focus in a volatile world. Instead of becoming victims of uncertainty, companies equipped with a living strategy continuously adapt, ensuring they play to win, over and over again.
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A rose by any other name...would probably be given an acronym (the un-fitts list)
Hoffman, Feltovich, Ford and Woods. 2002. (View Paper → )
In 1951, Paul Fitts “surveyed the kinds of things men can do better than present-day machines, and vice versa” and introduced a list of statements, now commonly known as the Fitts list.
They didn’t age well. The paper critiques the original Fitts’ List for focusing too heavily on human shortcomings and for encouraging designs that merely “patch” human limits. The Un-Fitts List instead spotlights human adaptability, context-awareness, and creativity—showing how machines can augment (rather than replace) these strengths and how humans, in turn, keep machines properly tuned to the real world.
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Book Highlights
Marc Andreessen coined the term product-market fit in a well-known blog post titled “The only thing that matters.” In that post he writes, “Product-market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.” My definition of product-market fit—which is consistent with his—is that you have built a product that creates significant customer value. This means that your product meets real customer needs and does so in a way that is better than the alternatives. Dan Olsen · The Lean Product Playbook
For best results, OKRs are scrutinised several times per quarter by contributors and their managers. John Doerr · Measure What Matters
To avoid confusion, it is best to call this an objective to distinguish it from an unsupported goal. Unsupported goals, like hitting a specific profit target in the next twelve months, are Dilbert-style corporate management, because such goals are disconnected from the reality of the situation Richard Rumelt · The Crux
Before you even begin designing your site, you should be testing comparable sites. They may be actual competitors, or they may be sites that are similar in style, organization, or features to what you have in mind. Krug Steve · Don’t Make Me Think
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Quotes & Tweets
"The quality of your thoughts is determined by the quality of your reading. Spend more time thinking about the inputs." James Clear
Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your own family to read. The consumer isn’t a moron, she’s your wife. You wouldn't tell lies to your own wife. Don't tell them to mine. David Ogilvy