Play to Win by Finding the Crux
Two of the most popular business strategy books today are The Crux by Richard Rumelt and Playing to Win by Roger Martin. Taken individually, one would think that each separate approach to strategy wouldn't be very successful. Their approaches to strategy are quite different, but surprisingly, taken together, they are synergistic. If you are scratching your head, let me explain.
Playing to Win is one of the few books that lays out a clear framework that readers can use to craft their strategy. Martin calls this the Integrated cascade of choices shown below from his medium site:
The cascade is described in Martin’s Medium articles, but I would recommend buying his book to fully understand and use it.
This framework is an excellent way to work through your strategy systematically. If you know “Your winning aspiration” and “How you will win,” then it will help you pull together the additional elements to create a full strategy you can be proud of.
What if you don’t know what your “Winning aspiration” is or “How to win”? This is where The Crux by Richard Rumelt steps in nicely. Before I get to that, it is important to understand how Rumelt defines strategy because there are some differences.
Both Rumelt and Martin agree that strategy is defined as making a clear set of choices about where to focus. They also agree that it is just as important to specify where you won’t focus as it is where you will. This is a key takeaway as it may seem counterintuitive to focus instead of playing it safe by spreading your bets.
Rumelt’s core definition of a strategy offers a different perspective. He sees it as a mix of policy and action designed to overcome a significant challenge. The key is to define a crux that can be mastered by seeing or designing a way through it.
Using this approach, we start with a set of problems and opportunities facing your company. We then whittle these down to the crux, defined as the one challenge that is both critical and solvable.
He is unequivocal this crux can’t be a set of long-term goals, i.e. grow by 20%. This is because the stated goal is not actionable by itself. How do you grow by 20%? Well, the first step is to define a problem or opportunity that would unlock that growth. Instead, why wouldn’t you start with a set of problems and opportunities and figure out which one is the crux? Solving this will give you the maximum growth.
If you struggle to figure out the set of problems or opportunities, he recommends using strategic frameworks like Porter’s Five Forces or Blue Ocean Strategy. He rightly points out that those frameworks won’t guide you to a specific set of actions. They will however help point you to potential problem areas that can be added to your list.
While The Crux and Playing to Win have different frameworks, they combine quite nicely. The Crux provides an excellent process to determine how to win in the market. This is the key component of any strategy and requires making a set of hard choices about where to focus. Identify your problems and select the one that is gnarly yet solvable as Rumelt says. This becomes your “How will you win” in the integrated cascade of choices. Playing to Win then provides the framework to lay it out and ensure you have thought through the implications of your decisions. As Martin mentions this may require an iterative process to get it right.
Both books are great reads. I highly recommend purchasing Playing to Win and The Crux and using them together. Happy reading!
