Playing to Win
Explains how companies must pinpoint business strategies to a few critically important choices, identifying common blunders while outlining simple exercises and questions that can guide day-to-day and long-term decisions.
Playing to Win
A Wall Street Journal and Washington Post Bestseller A playbook for creating your company's winning strategy. Strategy is not complex. But it is hard. It’s hard because it forces people and organizations to make specific choices about their future—something that doesn’t happen in most companies. Now two of today’s best-known business thinkers get to the heart of strategy—explaining what it’s for, how to think about it, why you need it, and how to get it done. And they use one of the most successful corporate turnarounds of the past century, which they achieved together, to prove their point. A.G. Lafley, former CEO of Procter & Gamble, in close partnership with strategic adviser Roger Martin, doubled P&G’s sales, quadrupled its profits, and increased its market value by more than $100 billion in just ten years. Now, drawn from their years of experience at P&G and the Rotman School of Management, where Martin is dean, this book shows how leaders in organizations of all sizes can guide everyday actions with larger strategic goals built around the clear, essential elements that determine business success—where to play and how to win. The result is a playbook for winning. Lafley and Martin have created a set of five essential strategic choices that, when addressed in an integrated way, will move you ahead of your competitors. They are: • What is our winning aspiration? • Where will we play? • How will we win? • What capabilities must we have in place to win? • What management systems are required to support our choices? The stories of how P&G repeatedly won by applying this method to iconic brands such as Olay, Bounty, Gillette, Swiffer, and Febreze clearly illustrate how deciding on a strategic approach—and then making the right choices to support it—makes the difference between just playing the game and actually winning.
Good Strategy Bad Strategy
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy clarifies the muddled thinking underlying too many strategies and provides a clear way to create and implement a powerful action-oriented strategy for the real world. Developing and implementing a strategy is the central task of a leader. A good strategy is a specific and coherent response to—and approach for—overcoming the obstacles to progress. A good strategy works by harnessing and applying power where it will have the greatest effect. Yet, Rumelt shows that there has been a growing and unfortunate tendency to equate Mom-and-apple-pie values, fluffy packages of buzzwords, motivational slogans, and financial goals with “strategy.” In Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, he debunks these elements of “bad strategy” and awakens an understanding of the power of a “good strategy.” He introduces nine sources of power—ranging from using leverage to effectively focusing on growth—that are eye-opening yet pragmatic tools that can easily be put to work on Monday morning, and uses fascinating examples from business, nonprofit, and military affairs to bring its original and pragmatic ideas to life. The detailed examples range from Apple to General Motors, from the two Iraq wars to Afghanistan, from a small local market to Wal-Mart, from Nvidia to Silicon Graphics, from the Getty Trust to the Los Angeles Unified School District, from Cisco Systems to Paccar, and from Global Crossing to the 2007–08 financial crisis. Reflecting an astonishing grasp and integration of economics, finance, technology, history, and the brilliance and foibles of the human character, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy stems from Rumelt’s decades of digging beyond the superficial to address hard questions with honesty and integrity.
Strategy That Works
How to close the gap between strategy and execution Two-thirds of executives say their organizations don’t have the capabilities to support their strategy. In Strategy That Works, Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi explain why. They identify conventional business practices that unintentionally create a gap between strategy and execution. And they show how some of the best companies in the world consistently leap ahead of their competitors. Based on new research, the authors reveal five practices for connecting strategy and execution used by highly successful enterprises such as IKEA, Natura, Danaher, Haier, and Lego. These companies: • Commit to what they do best instead of chasing multiple opportunities • Build their own unique winning capabilities instead of copying others • Put their culture to work instead of struggling to change it • Invest where it matters instead of going lean across the board • Shape the future instead of reacting to it Packed with tools you can use for building these five practices into your organization and supported by in-depth profiles of companies that are known for making their strategy work, this is your guide for reconnecting strategy to execution.
The Game-Changer
&Lsquo;A.G. Lafley Has Made Procter And Gamble Great Again&Rsquo;&Mdash;Economist &Lsquo;Ram Charan Is The Most Influential Consultant Alive&Rsquo;&Mdash;Fortune Magazine How To Increase And Sustain Organic Revenue And Profit Growth&Mdash;Whether You&Rsquo;Re Running An Entire Company Or In Your First Management Job. Over The Past Seven Years, Procter &Amp; Gamble Has Tripled Profits; Hugely Improved Organic Revenue Growth, Cash Flow, And Operating Margins; And Significantly Boosted Dividends. How? A. G. Lafley And His Leadership Team Have Integrated Innovation Into Everything Procter &Amp; Gamble Does&Mdash;Creating New Customers And New Markets. Through Eye-Opening Stories A. G. Lafley And Ram Charan Show How P&Amp;G And Companies Such As Nokia, Lego, And Ge Have Become Game-Changers. Their Inspiring Lessons Will Help You Achieve Higher Growth And Higher Margins, Tap In To Abundant Creativity Outside Your Business, Manage Risk And Integrate Innovation Into Your Decision-Making. In A World Of Unprecedented Change And Competitiveness, Innovation Is The Best&Mdash;And Arguably The Only&Mdash;Way To Win. Innovation Is Not A Separate Activity, But The Job Of Everyone In A Leadership Position And The Integral Driving Force For Any Business That Wants To Grow And Succeed. This Is A Game-Changing Book That Helps You Redefine Your Leadership.
