Playing to Win

How Strategy Really Works

By: Roger L. Martin, A.G. Lafley

Narrated by: LJ Ganser

Playing to Win, a noted Wall Street Journal and Washington Post best seller, outlines the strategic approach Lafley, in close partnership with strategic adviser Roger Martin, used to double P&G’s sales, quadruple its profits, and increase its market value by more than $100 billion when Lafley was first CEO (he led the company from 2000 to 2009). The book shows leaders in any type of organization how to guide everyday actions with larger strategic goals built around the clear, essential elements that determine business successwhere to play and how to win.

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: (1) What is our winning aspiration? (2) Where will we play? (3) How will we win? (4) What capabilities must we have in place to win? and (5) What management systems are required to support our choices? The result is a playbook for winning.

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 approachand then making the right choices to support itmakes the difference between just playing the game and actually winning.

Playing to Win outlines a proven method that has worked for some of today’s most celebrated brands and products. Let this book serve as your new guide to winning, as well.

©2013 A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Okay for strategy

Some of these things are straightforward. Although most of them seem short-termist, as is evident today. This is a good book to understand P&G businesses. There are probably better strategy books.

Loved it

The book was informative and I loved the examples. I was guilty of the error of strategic planning and now I’m convinced to change my strategy formulation approach.

Clear & Outstanding

This is simply one of the very few most important things you should read about strategy!

Great book and audio performance

The Choice Cascade provides an immensely linear and approachable model to understand business. Thank you.

Fun but limited to Oct

It was fun listening to it. If only they had longer story, need more story from outside

Strategy meaning and framework to create your own

It’s a great balance between science and application in a great success story of P&G gives the trust of working methods and steps that are executable which is very useful and very recommended for anyone wants to create a strategy for any size of business

The word “massteige” should have appeared at most once

There is about two hours of really good material in this 8 hour audiobook. I understand that the author has a long history at P&G but many of the stories seemed less like valuable business parables and more like P&G as copy. The book was also highly repetitive.

Mind changing

I have been a follower of "classical" strategy, the Porter way. I always had a difficulty to link theory to practice. This book is THE bridge that brings Porter to real world leaders. Full of examples, everything is very well explained, it's not a book for academics, it's written for the rest of us who are looking for a place in the market. Lafley and Martin show that choosing the place and how to behave there is key to business.

amazing strategy book

interesting approach to strategy creation. I loved every bit of this book. it is now one of my Go To's

Best strategy book

Great summary of strategy broken into easy to apply segments. One of the few books that I use as an essential reference.