Playing to Win: 8. Shorten Your Odds

Description

Play to Win: How Strategy Really Works is an 8-chapter books published in 2013 by Harvard Business Review Press and written by former Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley and Rotman School of Management Dean Roger L. Martin. The authors present a framework for creating strategy based on a decade of work at P&G. The framework is a strategic choice cascade, made up of 5 decision points that apply to companies of all sizes and in all markets. The model guides leaders in making choices around a winning aspiration, where to play, how to win, core capabilities, and management systems and is enriched by using the context of P&G's experience. The authors provide perspectives on how to put the framework into practice, offering practical tips and personal insights. Chapter 8, Shorten Your Odds (28 pages), explores group decision making and provides practical insight on how to put the strategic choice cascade into practice. The authors critique the traditional approach to generating "buy-in" and offer a process to focus on the critical questions for determining strategy. This process enables leaders to "reverse engineer" the possible outcomes and make informed choices. The authors walk the reader through seven steps from framing a choice and broadening the options, to using a strategic logic flow and testing outcomes. The chapter includes two essays "The Most Important Question In Strategy" and "The Power of an Outside Strategy Partner."

Keywords

Competitive advantage Growth strategy Strategy management