Established model
Playing to win
A. G. Lafley & Roger L. Martin · 2013
Also known as The strategy choice cascade, Where to play, how to win
Strategy as a short chain of linked choices, each of which has to make sense of the one above it.
Its place in the frameworkGoal Core›Strategic goals
What it does
The chain runs from what winning would mean, through where to compete and how to win there, to the capabilities and management systems the answer requires. Its useful insistence is that where and how are chosen together: a place to play with no credible way of winning in it is a wish, and a way of winning with no chosen place is a talent looking for a use.
- Reach for it when
- When the strategy document is a list of priorities that nobody could use to turn anything down.
- Where it stops
- It organises choices; it does not generate them. Drawn largely from one very large consumer-goods company, it says little about how a small firm with no room for error should hold several options open.
A. G. Lafley & Roger L. Martin, Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works, Harvard Business Review Press, 2013.
Why it sits at Strategic goals
The few goals that decide direction. A strategic goal is not simply a large goal — it is one that answers a diagnosed problem and commits the organisation to some paths at the cost of others.
A model is only useful when you reach for it at the right moment. This one answers a question that arises here — so it is filed here, and nowhere else. These are the working areas it serves:
- DiagnosisRumelt, Good Strategy / Bad Strategy (2011): diagnosis, guiding policy and coherent action as the kernel of any real strategy.
- Strategic themesKaplan & Norton’s strategy maps, where themes connect objectives across perspectives into a causal chain.
- Trade-offsPorter, What Is Strategy? (1996): the essence of strategy as choosing what not to do, and the role of trade-offs in making a position defensible.
- Horizon and measuresBalanced Scorecard practice on tying each strategic objective to a small number of outcome measures.
What it touches elsewhere
Nothing in a business is decided on its own. A conclusion reached with this model at Strategic goals lands in these other cores, whether or not anyone follows it there.
- GovernanceThe board approves strategy and sets the risk appetite the strategic goals have to sit within.
- Vision CoreStrategic goals should be readable as steps towards the stated vision.
- Market CoreDiagnosis usually begins here — with competitors, audience and opportunity.
- Brand CorePositioning is a strategic choice and belongs among these goals, not after them.
- Data CoreWhere the outcome measures are defined, collected and reported.
Filed at the same place
These answer questions that arise at Strategic goals too. Where they disagree with this one, the disagreement is the useful part.
- Rumelt’s kernel of good strategyA strategy is a diagnosis, a guiding policy and a set of coherent actions — and anything without all three is a wish list.
- The Ansoff MatrixFour directions growth can come from, ordered by how much is unfamiliar in each.
- Porter’s generic strategiesThere are three ways to win a market, and trying to do more than one at a time is how companies end up winning none.
- The growth–share matrixSort what the business owns by how fast its market is growing and how strong its position in it is, and fund each kind differently.
- The Cynefin frameworkDecide what kind of situation you are in before deciding how to act, because the right way to act differs by kind.
Elsewhere in Goal Core
These are other people’s models, named here so you can go to the source and use them properly. The Omnigoal is not affiliated with their authors and is not endorsed by them; nothing of theirs is reproduced here — no canvas, no diagram, no wording. Each is described in our own words, with the originator credited, because the framework is a place to put thinking, not a replacement for the people who did it. Model names and trademarks belong to their respective owners and are used here only to refer to the work itself.
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