Playing to win: How strategy really works

by A.G. Lafley

For a corporation to have a chance of delivering greater value together than the units could individually, there must be some core activities in common—both among businesses in the portfolio and between those businesses and the company overall. It is essential that all of the systems have at least some capabilities and activities that line up with the core capabilities of the organization. These shared capabilities—the ones that run through multiple divisions or units and the organization overall—create reinforcing rods that link different parts of the organization together, just as steel reinforcing rods run from floor to floor in a concrete building to keep it standing (figure 5-2). These reinforcing rods help drive strategy forward at all levels.