Playing to win: How strategy really works

by A.G. Lafley

The difference between the two approaches cannot be overstated. In a standard strategy discussion, skeptics attack ideas as vigorously as possible to knock options out of contention, and defenders parry the arguments to protect pet options. Tempers rise, statements get more extreme, and relationships are strained. Meanwhile, little new or helpful information emerges. If instead the dialogue is about what would have to be true, then the skeptic can say, “For me to be confident in this possibility, we would have to know that consumers would respond in the following way.” This is a very different sort of statement than “That option will never work! Consumers hate that approach.” Rather than a blanket denunciation of a possibility, skeptics in the reverse-engineering process must specify the exact source of their skepticism. This frame helps the possibility’s proponents understand the reservations and creates a standard of proof to address them.