Stratrix

Quick reference

Key formula / structure

Winning aspiration, then where to play and how to win as one pair, then the capabilities and management systems that pair demands.

Memory aid

Where you play and how you win are one choice, not two.

TL;DR

Draft what winning means. Write several candidate strategies, each as a pair: a field to play in and the reason you would win there. Test what would have to be true for each pair, choose one, and name the fields you give up. Then list the capabilities the pair demands and the management systems that build them, and go back to change any earlier choice that a later one exposes.

What Is Playing to Win?

Playing to Win treats a strategy as the answers to five linked questions: what winning means for you, where you will compete, how you will win there, what capabilities you need, and what management systems keep it running. A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin set it out in their 2013 book. The middle two, where to play and how to win, are the core; the authors call them "the heart of any strategy."

These choices can have integrity only when they fit together consistently; that is, when the how-to-win choice is made in the context of the where-to-play choice.

— A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin, with Jennifer Riel, "Leading with Intellectual Integrity," strategy+business (2013)

The common belief is that the cascade is a checklist you fill in from the top down. Martin, who created it, says that belief does the damage. He calls reading the boxes as "a linear sequence" a "fundamental and widespread misinterpretation," and he says the typical result is the market every competitor also wants, because the most attractive field looks most attractive to everyone. The fix is to treat where to play and how to win as one choice. "A WTP choice is useless without a HTW for that WTP," Martin writes, using his shorthand for where to play and how to win. "Likewise, a HTW is useless without a WTP on which to focus." In practice that means every candidate market is written down with the specific reason you would beat the others there, and a market with no such reason is dropped before anyone falls in love with it. Martin also grades the how-to-win box the weakest of the five in every cascade he has seen: usually it is "a list of initiatives," not a reason to win.

The five choices, with the core two joined

The cascade as a system: the middle two choices are made together, and any answer can send you back to another.

Winning aspiration

What winning means here

→

Where will we play?

Chosen together with how to win

→

How will we win?

Chosen together with where to play

→

Capabilities

What the pair demands

→

Management systems

What builds and keeps them

Origin & context

A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin set the method out in Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013). In a strategy+business article published the same year, they wrote that at Procter & Gamble "the method we used was known as the strategic choice cascade," and that "each year, we asked hundreds of company leaders, at all levels, to develop choices explicitly using this framework." Martin later wrote that he created the model about 25 years before his 2020 essay on it.

Builds on: A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin (2013), Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works, Harvard Business Review Press; A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin, with Jennifer Riel (2013), Leading with Intellectual Integrity, strategy+business; Roger L. Martin (2024), The Danger of Locking & Loading: The Strategy Choice Cascade is a System, not a Sequence.

Playing to Win in action

Unilever

Choosing the field: Unilever lets ice cream go

Unilever's own results for 2023 called its ice cream performance "disappointing": volumes fell 6.0%, and the business lost share to private label. It was not a small business. Ice cream brought in about €7.9 billion of turnover that year, 13% of the group.

In March 2024 Unilever announced it would separate ice cream. The route was open at first: a demerger was preferred, a sale was still on the table, and keeping the business was the third option. On February 13, 2025, Unilever confirmed a demerger and the new company's name, The Magnum Ice Cream Company.

The demerger was completed on December 6, 2025, and the new company's shares began trading on December 8. In its results for 2025, Unilever described the group that remained as four Business Groups: Beauty & Wellbeing, Personal Care, Home Care and Foods. The separation, it said, created "a simpler Unilever with a clearer strategic and capital allocation focus."

In the cascade's terms, that is a where-to-play answer, and a large one: it names the markets the group will compete in and the one it will not. Stratrix's Take: the framework's next question is the one to ask of it. How will Unilever win in each of the four fields, and was that answer part of choosing them? The same question now faces the ice cream company, whose field is a single category.

The Magnum Ice Cream Company debuted at a market value of roughly €7.9 billion and claims about 21% of the global ice cream market. Unilever reported €7,691 million of 2025 turnover from ice cream as discontinued operations.

Read the full story: Unilever's ice cream separation →

Using it in the room

Use it when a business is setting or resetting its strategy: at the start of an annual planning cycle, before a portfolio decision, or when a unit's plan reads like a list of projects. Run the where-and-how pairs in one session; the capabilities and systems can follow in a second.

Questions to ask

  • ?Where will we play, and what is the one reason we would win there?
  • ?Which fields are we choosing not to play in?
  • ?Would our strongest rival pick the same field for the same reason?
  • ?What would have to be true about customers and rivals for this pair to work?
  • ?Which capabilities does this pair need that we do not have, and which do we have that it does not need?

The 30-minute version

Five minutes to agree what winning means for now. Fifteen minutes for each person to write two where-and-how pairs, one sentence each. Five minutes to cross out any pair whose how-to-win is a list of projects. The last five minutes to pick the pair the team would bet on and name one thing it gives up.

Core Components

1

A winning aspiration

What winning means for this business, stated so it can guide the other four choices. The authors put it first in the cascade.

Example

A business decides it wants to lead its category in three regions, not to be present in thirty.

2

Where will we play?

In the authors' words, choosing "in which markets, for which customers, in which product lines, in which geographies you will compete." It is also a list of where you will not play.

Example

Unilever's continuing group is four Business Groups: Beauty & Wellbeing, Personal Care, Home Care and Foods. Ice cream is no longer one of them.

3

How will we win in our chosen markets?

Figuring out, in the authors' words, "how to create a sustainable competitive advantage on a specific playing field." It is chosen with the where-to-play answer, not after it.

Example

For each of the four fields, the one reason customers would choose this company over the strongest rival there.

4

What capabilities must be in place for us to win?

The activities and skills the where-and-how pair demands. A capability nobody needs for the chosen pair is a cost, however proud the company is of it.

Example

If the way to win is faster product launches, the capability is a launch process that runs in months, not years.

5

What management systems are required?

The budgets, measures and reviews that build and keep those capabilities. The authors tie the first three choices closely to these final two.

Example

The annual budget review asks of each unit how it will win in its field, not only what it will earn.

Martin, the model's co-creator, says that if he graded the five boxes across every cascade he has seen, how to win would get the lowest grade.

When to Use Playing to Win

Scenario 1

Deciding which businesses to keep

Problem it solves: A group has more businesses than it can lead, and every one of them has a defender.

Real-world application

A leadership team writes, for each business, the reason it would win in its field, and finds two businesses with no answer.

Scenario 2

Entering a new market

Problem it solves: The market looks large and fast-growing, which is why every rival is looking at it too.

Real-world application

Before approving the entry, the board asks for the specific advantage the company would have there that the current leaders lack.

Scenario 3

Writing an annual strategy

Problem it solves: The plan is a list of initiatives with no choice at its center.

Real-world application

The team rewrites the how-to-win section until each line names a reason customers would choose them, not a project they will run.

Scenario 4

Testing a business unit's plan

Problem it solves: Units fill in the five boxes in order and send them up, and nobody checks whether the boxes agree.

Real-world application

The reviewer reads the where-to-play and how-to-win boxes side by side and sends back any plan in which they do not fit.

The most attractive market is attractive to everyone

Picking the field with the highest margins and fastest growth, then working out how to win, is the habit Martin warns against most. Ask first where you have a reason to win, then how attractive that field is.

How to Apply Playing to Win: Step by Step

Before you start

  • →A clear unit of analysis: a company, a business unit or a product line
  • →Facts on customers, rivals and costs for the fields under consideration
  • →Decision-makers willing to say where the business will not play
Tools:One page per candidate pairFacts on customers, rivals and costsA whiteboard for the five boxes
1

Say what winning means

Draft a winning aspiration that could guide the other choices. Keep it as a draft; the later choices may change it.

Tips

  • ✓Make it something you could lose, not a slogan everyone already agrees with

Common mistakes

  • ✗Polishing the aspiration for weeks before any other choice is discussed
2

List possible where-and-how pairs

Write several candidate strategies, each as a pair: a field to play in and the reason you would win there.

Tips

  • ✓Aim for three to five genuinely different pairs, not one favorite and two straw men

Common mistakes

  • ✗Listing markets alone and picking the most attractive before asking how to win
3

Test each pair for fit

For each pair, ask what would have to be true for it to work: about customers, about rivals, about your own costs and skills.

Tips

  • ✓Ask which of those conditions the team is least sure of, and test that one first

Common mistakes

  • ✗Testing the market's attractiveness and never testing the reason to win
4

Choose, and name what you give up

Pick the pair that holds up best. Write down the fields you will not play in and the ways you will not try to win.

Tips

  • ✓A choice that rules nothing out is not yet a choice

Common mistakes

  • ✗Keeping every field open as an option, which spreads money and attention thin
5

Derive the capabilities

List the few activities the chosen pair demands, and the ones the company has that it does not need.

Tips

  • ✓Name what must be built, what must be bought and what can stop

Common mistakes

  • ✗Listing every capability the company already has and calling them all essential
6

Set the management systems, then loop back

Decide which budgets, measures and reviews will build and protect those capabilities. If any answer exposes a flaw in an earlier choice, go back and change it.

Tips

  • ✓Review the pair itself at least once a year, not only the progress against it

Common mistakes

  • ✗Treating the cascade as finished once the five boxes are filled

Showing the result

One slide: the winning aspiration in a line, then the chosen where-to-play and how-to-win written as a single sentence, then the fields given up. Underneath, the three capabilities the choice depends on.

On the slide

  • ✓Where to play and how to win in one sentence
  • ✓What the business will not do
  • ✓The few capabilities the choice depends on

Left off

  • ✕The five boxes drawn as a staircase
  • ✕A how-to-win written as a list of projects
  • ✕Every option considered (put them in an appendix)

Value & Outcomes

Primary benefit

It turns a strategy into a few explicit choices that can be tested, and it forces the market and the reason to win to be chosen together.

Additional benefits

  • ✓Gives a whole organization one shared language for strategy
  • ✓Makes what the business will not do as visible as what it will
  • ✓Links the choice to the capabilities and systems needed to carry it out

What you'll learn

  • →The five choices and how they connect
  • →Why where to play and how to win must be chosen together
  • →How to tell a reason to win from a list of initiatives

Typical outcomes

A one-page strategy built on a single where-and-how pairA list of fields and approaches the business has ruled outA short list of capabilities to build, keep or stop

Best Practices

📋 Preparation

  • •Agree the unit you are writing a strategy for
  • •Gather facts on customers, rivals and costs for each candidate field
  • •Bring the people who will carry out the choice, not only those who will approve it

🚀 Execution

  • •Write where to play and how to win as pairs, never as separate lists
  • •Ask what would have to be true before arguing about what is true
  • •Name the fields you are giving up

🔄 Follow-Up

  • •Check that budgets and reviews match the chosen pair
  • •Revisit the pair when a core assumption about customers or rivals breaks
  • •Read every unit's where and how boxes side by side

💎 Pro Tips

  • •If the how-to-win box reads like a project list, start it again
  • •Distrust a where-to-play answer every rival would also choose
  • •Let a later choice send you back to change an earlier one
Write the pair on one line

For every candidate market, write one sentence: we will play here, and we will win because of this. If the second half is a list of projects, it is not yet a reason to win.

Limitations & Pitfalls

⚡

Drawn as five stacked boxes, it invites teams to answer from the top down. Martin says that reading is widespread and leads to the market every rival also wants.

Mitigation: Draw the middle two choices as one box and write them as pairs

⚡

The how-to-win box is hard to fill well. Martin says it is the weakest of the five in the cascades he has seen, usually a list of initiatives rather than a reason to win.

Mitigation: Ask for each line: why would a customer choose us over the strongest rival here?

⚡

It names the questions but not the answers. The analysis of customers, rivals and costs still has to be done.

Mitigation: Pair it with tools for that analysis, such as Porter's Five Forces for the field and VRIO for the capabilities

⚡

Real choices close doors, and teams avoid them. Martin wrote in 2014 that choosing a strategy "entails making decisions that explicitly cut off possibilities and options."

Mitigation: Make the list of what you will not do a required part of the output

⚡

It can become an annual form to fill in rather than a choice to make.

Mitigation: Judge a cascade by whether it ruled something out, not by whether every box is full

What comes before and after

Run first

Porter's Five Forces →

Sizes up how attractive each candidate field is before you test your reason to win in it.

Core competency analysis →

Shows what the company is already good at, the raw material for a how-to-win answer.

Run next

The strategy statement builder →

Turns the chosen pair into a strategy statement people can repeat.

Strategy map →

Lays out the capabilities and measures the fifth choice needs.

Where this comes fromA.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin introduced this (2013).

Sources & further reading

Companies that faced this decision
2008Dow2 dated outcomes2020Gap3 dated outcomes2012Facebook3 dated outcomes
All 44 verified The Fork records →

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