5 essential questions to craft a winning strategy | Roger Martin (author, advisor, speaker)

Roger Martin is one of the world’s leading experts on strategy and the author of Playing to Win, one of the most beloved books on strategy. He’s written extensively for the Harvard Business Review; consulted for dozens of Fortune 500 companies, including P&G, Lego, and Ford; and written 11 other books. In our conversation, we discuss:

• The five key questions you need to answer to develop an effective strategy

• Why most companies get strategy wrong

• How to avoid “playing to play” instead of playing to win

• Real-world strategy examples from Procter & Gamble, Southwest Airlines, Lego, and Figma

• How to think about differentiation vs. low cost

• Shortcomings of current strategy education

• Much more

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Correction: Roger pointed out that he made an error during our chat. When I asked him about Richard Rumelt (~16 mins), he thought I said Richard D'Aveni.

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Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-ultimate-guide-to-strategy-roger-martin

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Where to find Roger Martin:

• X: https://x.com/RogerLMartin

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roger-martin-9916911a9/

• Website: https://rogerlmartin.com/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Roger’s background

(02:20) The importance of strategy

(07:00) Challenges in developing strategy

(08:30) Critique of modern strategy education

(14:00) Hamilton Helmer and Richard Rumelt

(17:40) Defining strategy

(19:12) The Strategy Choice Cascade

(23:20) Playing to win vs. playing to play

(24:57) Examples of strategic success

(30:49) Differentiation and moats

(40:23) Applying strategy to real-world scenarios

(43:47) Customer-centric strategy

(44:45) Defining the market and product

(45:59) Value chain and distribution

(48:28) Cost leadership vs. differentiation

(53:16) Capabilities and management systems

(57:14) Competitive advantage and market positioning

(01:02:41) Counterpositioning and fault lines

(01:05:53) Adapting to AI and market changes

(01:14:11) Betterment over perfection

(01:18:42) Final thoughts on strategy

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Referenced:

• Nearly 10% of S&P 500 CEOs are alumni of Procter & Gamble: https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2023/02/06/10-of-s-p-500-ceos-pg.html

• FigJam: https://www.figma.com/figjam/

• Figma: