Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works

The desire to win spurs a helpfully competitive mind-set, a desire to do better whenever possible.

Each company doesn’t just want to serve customers; it wants to win with them. And that is the single most crucial dimension of a company’s aspiration: a company must play to win. To play merely to participate is self-defeating. It is a recipe for mediocrity. Winning is what matters—and it is the ultimate criterion of a successful strategy. Once the

To win with Olay in mass, the company had to bridge the mass and prestige markets, creating what it would come to call a masstige category.

Do start with consumers, rather than products, when thinking about what it means to win.

strategy is an integrated set of choices that uniquely positions the firm in its industry so as to create sustainable advantage and superior value relative to the competition.

Do consider how to win in concert with where to play. The choices should be mutually reinforcing, creating a strong strategic core for the company.

Winning aspirations should be crafted with the consumer explicitly in mind.

It is tempting to think that you have no choice in where to play, because it makes for a great excuse for mediocre performance.

strategy is an integrated set of choices that uniquely positions the firm in its industry so as to create sustainable advantage and superior value relative to the competition