My recommended approach to strategy development is built around Roger Martin and A.G. Lafley's Playing to Win framework. The core idea is that strategy is a set of integrated choices.
As well as helping an organisation define its strategy, this approach also aligns the organisation on how to resource and execute it, by cascading down and across departments and teams.
The end result is a coherent, interlocking strategy where everyone can see how their role and function contribute to the bigger picture.
A.G. Lafley was chief executive of Procter and Gamble (P&G). Roger Martin was his strategy adviser, and later Dean of the Rotman School of Management in Toronto. They developed the approach at P&G in the 2000s and set it out in their 2013 book.
- A.G. Lafley
- Roger L. Martin
Let's pick apart a few of the key elements of Playing to Win.
The act of defining strategy is to choose what you will and will not do. Playing to Win helps leaders identify key choices to be made, barriers to making those choices, and tests to enable decision making.
The Strategy Choice Cascade asks leaders to answer five questions, and each one asks for a choice to be made.
The choices should reinforce one another, for example where you compete shapes how you succeed there, which shapes the capabilities you build.
Playing to Win's Strategy Choice Cascade is a system rather than a linear sequence, so for best results the five elements should integrate with each other.
As Martin says: "When a company sets out to participate, rather than win, it will inevitably fail to make the tough choices and significant investments that would make winning even a remote possibility."
Winning means naming the customers you intend to serve better than anyone else, and accepting that you will serve others less well.
- Roger L. Martin
These five linked questions form the backbone of Playing to Win.
The first box should define what winning looks like for your organisation, framed around customers, and not just a financial target. What are you trying to accomplish?
The specific playing field: including geography, product type or category, consumer segment, channel, and stage of the value system. It should equally define where you will not play. A good answer here provides a genuinely choiceful playing field that enables your How to Win, not simply the most attractive market for everyone.
The key box: this is where you define how you will create and capture value in your chosen field so that customers choose you.
The small set of capabilities that, working together, make your How to Win real.
The systems, structures, measures and processes that build, maintain and reinforce the must-have capabilities.
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Ask everyone to write the two answers on a card, privately, one sentence each. Collect them and read them aloud without names.
Teams who believe they are aligned often find several different strategies in the pile. It is a fast way to locate the real work, and it starts the session on evidence the team produced itself.
These two questions only work when answered together. A playing field on its own describes an ambition to be present somewhere. A way of winning on its own floats free of any particular customer.
Held together they make a claim you can test: these customers, for this reason, better than these competitors.
The pairing is also what makes a strategy usable below the board. A manager who knows both can decide most things without asking, because they can see which options fit.
Ask everyone to write the two answers on a card, privately, one sentence each. Collect them and read them aloud without names.
Teams who believe they are aligned often find several different strategies in the pile. It is a fast way to locate the real work, and it starts the session on evidence the team produced itself.
These two questions only work when answered together. A playing field on its own describes an ambition to be present somewhere. A way of winning on its own floats free of any particular customer.
Held together they make a claim you can test: these customers, for this reason, better than these competitors.
The pairing is also what makes a strategy usable below the board. A manager who knows both can decide most things without asking, because they can see which options fit.
Ask everyone to write the two answers on a card, privately, one sentence each. Collect them and read them aloud without names.
Teams who believe they are aligned often find several different strategies in the pile. It is a fast way to locate the real work, and it starts the session on evidence the team produced itself.
Write down the opposite of your statement. If the opposite is something no sensible organisation would say, the original was a statement of intent.
Run this across a draft strategy and it usually gets a good deal shorter. What remains is the part that will guide a decision.
When a team splits between two options, the argument runs on conviction and has nowhere to go, because both sides are arguing about a future neither can see.
Rather than asking which option is right, ask what would have to be true for each option to be a great choice.
Write the conditions that would make option B a brilliant choice.
Write the conditions that would make option A a brilliant choice.
Nobody is defending a position, so people think properly. The team ends up with two lists of conditions, agrees which it doubts most, works out what evidence would settle them, and goes and gets it. The argument has become a piece of research with an answer at the end.
Write the conditions down verbatim, in the team's own words. When evidence comes back weeks later, a team that can see the exact condition it named will accept the answer.
The question "What Would Have to Be True?" sits inside a longer sequence Roger Martin developed for working a strategic choice from start to finish, the Strategic Choice Structuring Process (SCSP).
The SCSP turns the Cascade from a framework into a working method.
A choice invites a decision. Crystallising issues by clearly framing choices for resolving them makes them immediately real and meaningful. The task here is to create mutually exclusive options that stand in opposition to one another.
Martin calls these "happy stories," and we're looking for a wide range of diverse possibilities, expressed as narratives or scenarios, that describe a positive outcome. Creating a commitment to openness and establishing psychological safety within the group is key at this stage.
What would have to be true for each one to be a great choice? This is reverse engineering the logic of each possibility. This removes the option of judging possibilities based on opinion.
Now the group can express which of the conditions set in the previous step are the least likely to hold true. This is where to encourage sceptical group members to raise concerns and identify which conditions really need to be tested.
Once we've identified key barriers, we move on to identifying compelling and valid tests. Again, this is where the sceptic can be useful, in setting a test that would satisfy their standard.
Here, the group can test the conditions they feel are the least likely to hold up first. They then move through other conditions in order of confidence level.
Having completed the above steps, the step of choosing becomes simple, and the group can move forward confidently.
One of Martin’s favourite anecdotes involves the Chevrolet Malibu and the Toyota Camry, two mid-sized sedans that were once locked in fierce competition for dominance in the US market.
The Malibu team had their eyes glued to the wrong target. They weren’t asking, “Are we building the best car?” (i.e. winning) but instead, “How can we double our sales numbers?”
They wanted to increase the previous year’s Malibu sales of 60,000 to a new target of 120,000. The Malibu’s main competitor, the Toyota Camry, sold 560,000 per year.
Martin asked the Malibu team: “How does the new Malibu actually stack up against the Camry?” to which they answered: “We don’t know.”
The Malibu team, obsessed with achieving a revenue target, lost sight of what really mattered: whether their product could compete with the Camry on quality and customer experience. They weren’t thinking about the larger competitive landscape. They were focused on improving on the last Malibu rather than making the big strategic choices needed to actually win against the Camry.
Martin went on to work with the Malibu team to benchmark against the Camry, and make the necessary improvements so it could compete. As a result, the Malibu went on to reach sales levels four times its initial target.
This is one of the most common ways a strategy conversation goes wrong. The growth target arrives first, the plan is built to deliver it, and nobody asks the question underneath: why would a customer choose us over the thing they are buying today?
How do we double our sales?
This question is usually only answerable by working harder at what you already do. It compares you with yourself.
How does our car compare with the one people actually choose to buy?
This question is best answered by looking outward, and it usually changes what you build.
Each tab holds one company's five-step cascade, the conditions that had to be true for the strategy to work, and the payoff when the market proved them right.
Become the most trusted anti-ageing brand for women and build skincare into a billion-dollar business for P&G.
The "masstige" tier: mass retail distribution with premium positioning, targeting women aged 35 to 50.
Compete on high-end, clinically proven active ingredients rather than low prices. Prestige skincare without the prestige counter.
Deep R&D in chemical formulation, elite consumer understanding, and P&G's global retail distribution muscle.
Cross-functional teams bridging prestige beauty R&D with mass-market retail marketing, and strict innovation pipeline tracking.
Women will pay premium prices ($18 and up) for skincare in a mass-market drugstore aisle.
Prestige department-store brands won't drop their prices to compete in the masstige space.
P&G scientists can formulate a visibly superior anti-ageing product that justifies the price.
Women discover they can get department-store results in a drugstore aisle. P&G invents the masstige category, Olay sheds its cheap "Oil of" stigma, and the brand grows into a multi-billion-dollar global skincare business, proving that heavy R&D investment works in mass retail.
Empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more.
Enterprise cloud computing (Azure), artificial intelligence, and open cross-platform software, bringing Office to iOS and Android.
Open ecosystem partnerships rather than a closed Windows-only moat, built on enterprise trust and seamless corporate integration.
Hyperscale cloud infrastructure, global enterprise sales, and world-class AI and software engineering.
Executive metrics moved from Windows licences to cloud consumption, and a culture rebuilt from "know-it-alls" to "learn-it-alls".
Enterprises want open, hybrid cloud environments rather than being locked into a single operating system.
Apple and Google will let Microsoft software (Office 365) onto iOS and Android devices.
Microsoft can shift thousands of engineers from protecting Windows to building cloud infrastructure.
Corporate clients trust Azure with their most sensitive data, and consumers happily use Office on Apple devices. Microsoft sheds its defensive, PC-first reputation and becomes the dominant, platform-agnostic cloud and AI company, driving a multi-trillion-dollar valuation.
Become the UK's undisputed leader in food on the go, beating fast-food and coffee chains on convenience and value.
Travel hubs, drive-thrus, industrial estates and petrol stations, targeting the morning commuter and the quick-lunch buyer.
High volume, low cost, rapid service, hot food innovation, and highly visible, culturally relevant marketing such as the vegan sausage roll.
A centralised, ultra-efficient food production and supply chain, and rapid store deployment in non-traditional formats.
Store KPIs changed from loaf sales to morning footfall and coffee and breakfast combo sales, run on centralised logistics software.
Commuters put speed and convenience above artisanal, traditional bakery quality.
Fast-food giants (McDonald's) and coffee chains (Costa) won't monopolise the morning breakfast and drive-thru market.
The logistics network can deliver fresh, hot food daily to highly decentralised locations such as petrol stations and travel hubs.
The British public stops associating Greggs with sliced bread and treats it as the destination for a cheap, hot breakfast or lunch. The vegan sausage roll goes culturally viral, drive-thru sales surge, and Greggs becomes one of the most profitable and best-loved food-on-the-go brands in the UK.
Be the most trusted retailer for UK shoppers by focusing ruthlessly on core grocery value, quality and customer service.
The UK domestic grocery market, exiting international and side-business distractions and competing directly with the German discounters.
Aldi Price Match to neutralise the discounters, exclusive Clubcard Prices to drive loyalty, and doing fewer things better.
Massive UK footprint and buying power, advanced data analytics through Dunnhumby (Clubcard), and unmatched domestic supply chain leverage.
Ruthless operational cost controls, with executive bonuses tied to customer trust metrics and core UK performance rather than global sprawl.
Shoppers care fundamentally about base grocery prices rather than peripheral services like banking and global stores.
The rapid growth of Aldi and Lidl can be stalled if a legacy supermarket matches them on price.
Tesco can cut enough internal operational bloat to fund the Aldi Price Match without destroying margins.
Shoppers realise they don't need to visit Aldi or Lidl to save money because the Aldi Price Match neutralises the threat. The aggressive Clubcard rollout builds massive loyalty and unmatched data analytics, returning Tesco to sustained, reliable profitability and undisputed UK market leadership.
Be the UK's premier destination for trusted value: exceptional quality in food and curated modern style in clothing.
Premium convenience food, younger shoppers reached by platforming third-party fashion brands, and a shift to larger retail parks.
"Remarksable Value" food campaigns, modern digital integration, and running a curated platform rather than an exclusive own-brand retailer.
Renowned food sourcing and quality control, digital platform logistics for third-party inventory, and deep legacy brand trust.
An active store rotation programme with strict closing and opening metrics, digital sales tracking, and new systems for third-party vendors.
Younger shoppers will visit M&S if it sells third-party brands alongside its own.
Competitors like Waitrose will fail to match M&S's rapid expansion into premium convenience food.
The legacy supply chain can be modernised to handle the complex inventory of 40-plus external fashion brands.
Younger consumers who previously ignored M&S come for third-party brands like Nobody's Child and end up buying the revitalised own-brand clothing too. The food division becomes the gold standard for premium convenience, and profits surge 58% in a historic high-street comeback.
Become the world's first fully digital, unified ultra-luxury brand, using British heritage to win the global millennial market.
Centralised global flagship stores, digital and social media platforms, and the high-end luxury tier, stripping the check pattern off mass products.
Digital storytelling and tech integration as the first luxury brand to live-stream its fashion shows, extreme brand exclusivity, and centralised design.
Digital marketing dominance, centralised high-end design in London, and tight supply chain and licensing enforcement.
23 global licences bought back to control the brand strictly, ad spend shifted to digital ROI metrics, and centralised creative approval.
The emerging millennial luxury consumer values British heritage and will engage with luxury through digital channels.
Legacy luxury rivals like LVMH and Kering will be slow to adopt e-commerce and social media marketing.
The company can survive the immediate, massive revenue loss of buying back licences and stripping the check from cheap goods.
Global millennials and Gen Z embrace Burberry's digital-first storytelling and live-streamed fashion shows. Starving the mass market of the iconic check restores exclusivity, revenues double, and Burberry claws its way back into the top luxury tier alongside Prada and Louis Vuitton.
Create a high-performing, competitive, resilient and growing business with the financial strength to shape its own destiny.
Widebody commercial aviation, defence and power systems, explicitly exiting speculative tech such as advanced air mobility.
Strict commercial discipline: aggressive price rises on spare parts, renegotiated legacy contracts, and zero tolerance for vanity projects.
Deep, world-class engineering in large engines, long-term defence and government relationships, and global aftermarket servicing.
Ruthless cash-generation KPIs, restructuring to remove silos and overhead, and an intense "burning platform" performance culture.
Airlines value Rolls-Royce engines enough to absorb double-digit price increases on maintenance contracts.
GE and Pratt & Whitney face similar supply chain and cost pressures and won't severely undercut them.
Speculative R&D such as electric aviation can pause without losing long-term engineering relevance.
Airlines, deeply reliant on the widebody engines, accept the new maintenance pricing. The burning-platform urgency strips out corporate bloat, cash flow rebounds, margins expand, and the stock becomes a high-performing darling of the FTSE 100.
Inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow through the highly profitable core System of Play: the interlocking plastic brick.
Construction toys, high-margin IP partnerships (Star Wars, Harry Potter), adult fans of LEGO, and exits from theme parks and game development.
Ruthless operational discipline, halving the number of unique pieces produced, innovating around the brick, and leveraging global blockbusters.
World-class precision plastic moulding, master-level IP licensing negotiation, and deep community engagement.
Strict piece-count limits imposed on designers, profitability tracked per individual box, and non-core operations like Legoland outsourced.
Children and adults still deeply value tactile, physical play in an increasingly digital world.
Massive entertainment IPs like Star Wars and Harry Potter will license to a company currently bleeding cash.
Halving the number of unique brick pieces will cut supply chain costs without destroying the creative appeal of the toys.
Children and adults rediscover the magic of the physical brick. Cutting component bloat lifts margins, partnerships with huge franchises become cultural phenomena, and adult fans buy complex, high-margin sets, propelling LEGO past Mattel to become the most profitable toy company on earth.
Complete your cascade, one stage at a time. Each comes with a sentence starter, a short test of what good looks like, and a live example. You'll finish with a first draft to take to your team.
One sentence that names what winning means for you and who you win with. Purpose first, numbers second. Use the suggested format or design your own.
Become the most trusted anti-ageing brand for women and build skincare into a billion-dollar business for P&G.
Choose your battlefield across five fields: geographies, customer segments, channels, product categories, and your stage of the value chain. What you rule out matters just as much.
The UK domestic grocery market, exiting international and side-business distractions and competing directly with the German discounters.
There are two routes: lower cost or differentiation. Pick one deliberately, then write it from your customer's point of view.
High volume, low cost, rapid service, hot food innovation, and highly visible, culturally relevant marketing such as the vegan sausage roll.
The few things you must be excellent at for the first three stages to be possible. Aim for three to five that reinforce each other.
World-class precision plastic moulding, master-level IP licensing negotiation, and deep community engagement.
The measures, rhythms and incentives that make the choices stick.
Executive metrics moved from Windows licences to cloud consumption, and a culture rebuilt from "know-it-alls" to "learn-it-alls".
Now reverse the test. For your cascade to work, what must be true about your customers, your competitors, and your own capabilities and costs? Write conditions you could go and check.
The millennial luxury consumer values British heritage and will engage digitally. Rivals will be slow to follow. The company can survive the revenue loss of buying back its licences.
Write the happy story: the world three years from now, as if the conditions came true. Past tense, one customer behaviour, one number.
The public treats Greggs as the destination for a cheap, hot breakfast. The vegan sausage roll goes viral, drive-thru sales surge, and Greggs becomes one of the UK's most profitable food-on-the-go brands.
Here's your Cascade in full. Take it to your team and get their feedback.
I'll send your draft so you have it to hand, and add you to On The Same Page, my weekly newsletter. Unsubscribe any time.
Other models can be useful when a team is stuck at a particular question.
It's not necessary to use all these models in every piece of strategy development. Deciding to use them should be based on the particular challenge faced and the existing insights available.
I facilitate Playing to Win processes for executive boards and leadership teams. I bring the method, the questions and the pace. Your team makes the choices and owns them afterwards.
Lafley and Martin are clear that every line of business and every function should have its own where to play and how to win, aligned to the one above it. Strategy belongs to teams facing inward as much as the ones facing customers.
Which businesses we are in, and how the whole is worth more than the parts.
Which customers this business serves, and why they choose us over the alternatives.
Who this function serves inside the business, and what it does better than an outside supplier could.
A function that answers those two questions stops being a service desk and starts making choices. An HR team that has decided where it plays can say what it will stop doing, which is the same discipline the board applied above it.
The nesting also gives you a test. If a business unit's answers could sit under any group strategy, the group strategy is probably not making a choice.
Size matters less than you would think. A ten-person business and a listed group answer the same five questions, and the smaller team often answers them faster.
Playing to Win answers the first question in the method I use with leadership teams, which I call On The Same Page. Strategy sets the direction. Four more layers decide whether that direction survives contact with the organisation.
Where will you compete, and how will you win? This is the layer Playing to Win answers.
What standards do you actually set? Choices hold when leaders behave the same way outside the room.
How does the org chart become an organisation? Strategy travels through the handovers between teams.
What happens when nobody is watching? What gets rewarded decides which choices stick.
What does the outside see? The evidence of whether the choices reached the customer.
The five work as a system. Strength in one raises the others, and problems travel between them. A strategy that keeps getting revisited is often a leadership problem, and a culture problem often turns out to be a teamwork problem.
Which is why a completed Cascade is the start of the work. Most organisations get their strategy broadly right and lose it in the gap between intent and behaviour.
The method is public and the books explain it well. What varies is what happens when a leadership team sits down to use it.
The team works on an A1 canvas with the five blocks laid out, using sticky notes, credited to Roger Martin on the sheet. Everything stays visible and anyone can move it, which keeps the session collective rather than a series of presentations.
I speak to each person who will be in the room before the first session. Sessions that start from what the team actually thinks move much faster than sessions that start from what people say in front of each other.
When the board names the conditions it doubts, each gets a board member's name against it. The test comes back to the person who asked for it, and the finding gets accepted instead of relitigated.
For a group-level review, a cross-functional working group builds and tests the possibilities while the board frames the questions and makes the choices. The value sits in the passes between them, and each pass needs designing.
The output is a completed Cascade in the language the team used, alongside the possibilities they set aside and the evidence behind the choice. A strategy people can quote is one they can apply.
The source. Sets out the Cascade and works through it with examples from Procter and Gamble. Start here.
Martin's collected thinking on strategy, competition and management. Useful once the Cascade is familiar and you want the reasoning underneath it.
On holding two opposing ideas at once and building a better answer from both. It explains why What Would Have to Be True works as well as it does.
Martin publishes regularly and has made a set of practitioner materials freely available. Worth following if you plan to run the method yourself.