where-to-play-how-to-winlisted

# Where to Play, How to Win ## When to use Use this when leadership has ambition and initiatives but no coherent strategic direction that ties them together. The symptom is a strategy that reads as a list of goals or a budget, where any given choice could be swapped out without the rest noticing. This skill forces a set of linked choices that reinforce each other and make winning plausible. ## What it does It produces a five-part strategy choice cascade in which each choice constrains and supports the next, plus an explicit test of whether the choices reinforce one another. The output is a single coherent theory of how the business wins in its chosen arena, not a menu of options. ## Method Run the strategy choice cascade as five linked choices. Each answer must be a real choice that rules something out, not a platitude. 1. Winning aspiration. State what winning means for this business in this arena. Not "be a leader" but a concrete definition: who we serve, what outcome we deliver, and what success looks like in economic and market terms. Reject aspirations that no competitor would disagree with. 2. Where to play. Define the specific field of competition across five dimensions: geographies, customer segments, product and service categories, channels, and stages of the value chain. For each dimension, name what is in and what is deliberately out. A "where to play" that includes everything is a non-choice. Force at least one explicit exclusion per dimension. 3. How to win