Playing to Win

A.G. Lafley has been named CEO, President, and Chairman of Procter & Gamble, where he previously served as CEO from 2000 to 2009. P&G's sales doubled, profits quadrupled, and market value increased by more than $100 billion under Lafley's leadership, and its portfolio of billion-dollar brands including Tide, Pampers, Olay, and Gillette grew from 10 to 24 as a result of his emphasis on winning strategic choices, consumer-driven innovation, and reliable, sustainable growth.

Roger Martin is the Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and a consultant to CEOs on strategy, design, innovation, and integrative thinking. Roger was voted the world's sixth top management thinker by Thinkers50 in 2011. This is his sixth book; he also writes for Harvard Business Review, the Financial Times, and the Washington Post, among other publications.

Strategy is not difficult. But it's difficult. It's difficult because it requires people and organizations to make concrete decisions about their future, something that most businesses do not do.

Now, two of today's most prominent business thinkers go to the heart of strategy, explaining what it is, how to think about it, why you need it, and how to implement it. And they utilize one of the most successful corporate turnarounds of the last century, which they co-created, to demonstrate their thesis.

In just ten years, A.G. Lafley, former CEO of Procter & Gamble, and strategic adviser Roger Martin doubled P&G's sales, quadrupled its profits, and increased its market value by more than $100 billion. Playing to Win 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 drawn from their years of experience at P&G and the Rotman School of Management, where Martin is dean.

The end outcome is a winning strategy. Lafley and Martin have developed a set of five critical strategic options that, when addressed holistically, will put you ahead of your competitors. They are as follows:

• What is our winning goal?
• Where are we going to play?
• How will we triumph?
• What capabilities do we need to be successful?
• What management systems are required to back up our decisions?

The stories of how P&G won again and again by applying this method to iconic brands like Olay, Bounty, Gillette, Swiffer, and Febreze clearly demonstrate 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.

Author: A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Playing-Win-Strategy-Really-Works/dp/142218739X/

Ratings: 4.5 out of 5 stars (from 1414 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #10,254 in Books

#15 in Strategy & Competition

#22 in Strategic Business Planning

#29 in Systems & Planning