Where to Start with A.G. Lafley & Roger Martin
A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin are a business author duo whose collaboration produced one of the most widely adopted strategy frameworks in the corporate world. A.G. Lafley served as Chairman, President, and CEO of Procter & Gamble from 2000 to 2009, and again from 2013 to 2015. Under his first tenure, he doubled P&G’s sales, quadrupled its profits, and grew its portfolio of billion-dollar brands from 10 to 24. Roger L. Martin is a professor emeritus at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, where he served as dean from 1998 to 2013. In 2017, Thinkers50 named him the world’s number one management thinker. Together they wrote “Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works” (2013), which distills their strategic approach into five interconnected questions. Martin has also authored several solo books, including “The Opposable Mind” (2007) and “A New Way to Think” (2022). Their framework has been adopted by organizations ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies and has become a standard reference in MBA programs worldwide.
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Playing to Win
A.G. Lafley & Roger Martin · 272 pages · 2013 · Easy
Themes: business strategy, competitive advantage, frameworks, corporate leadership
A practical strategy framework built on the real transformation of one of the world’s largest companies. Lafley and Martin distill their approach into five deceptively simple questions that force strategic clarity.
Why Start Here
The framework centers on five interconnected choices: What is our winning aspiration? Where will we play? How will we win? What capabilities must we have in place? What management systems are required? Each question builds on the previous ones, and the power lies in how they constrain each other.
Every concept is illustrated with real examples from P&G’s transformation, including strategic choices made about Olay, Bounty, Gillette, Swiffer, and other iconic brands. The reasoning behind each decision and the results that followed make the abstract concrete. The framework is accessible enough to apply immediately.
What to Expect
A focused 272-page book that is easy to read in a weekend. The writing is clear and jargon-free. This is the most actionable strategy book you will find, giving you a framework you can start using immediately with your own team.