HARDBALL: ARE YOU PLAYING TO PLAY OR PLAYING TO WIN?

One of the best business books I've read is Hardball: Are You Playing to Play or Playing to Win? This politically incorrect tour de force is creating controversy among business intelligentsia because the authors have the audacity to suggest that enterprises should compete and compete hard. Published by the Harvard Business School Press and written by George Stalk, senior vice president of the Boston Consulting Group, and Rob Lachenauer a BCG alumnus, the authors present a clear vision of what it really takes to compete and win in the 21st century. Here is the text from the promotional brochure:

There are two extremes in business competition today. Companies can play softball, relying on weak tactics that look like strategies but that actually do little more than keep the company in the game for the short term. Or they can play hardball—employing tough strategies designed to rout, not simply beat, competitors. In their book Hardball: Are You Playing to Play or Playing to Win?, veteran strategists George Stalk, senior vice president of The Boston Consulting Group, and Rob Lachenauer, a former BCG director and now CEO of GEO2 Technologies, argue that business is about winning and losing, not about "playing nice." For too long, companies have focused on soft issues such as customer relations and corporate culture while ignoring the killer strategic instinct that has been the hallmark of winning since business competition began. Stalk and Lachenauer say that hardball winners practice the soft management skills, but always in the context of classic hardball play. They rally talent and build culture through a laserlike focus on the few "heart-of-the-matter" issues most critical to success. These companies play rough and they don't apologize for it—but they never break the rules, and they always keep their promises to customers and shareholders. Drawing on their forty years of combined experience in advising and observing a range of companies, Stalk and Lachenauer show how hardball companies move beyond mere competitive advantage to achieve decisive advantages that neutralize, marginalize, and even punish rivals. Through rich, engaging examples that take leaders deep inside the world of intense hardball competition, the book reveals a cache of classic moves designed to catapult companies far out of competitors' reach. From exploiting anomalies to threatening competitors' profit sanctuaries to breaking industry compromises, the book reveals who uses these strategies, under what circumstances and in which industries each strategy is most effective, and how to execute each move successfully. Today's global marketplace is the toughest and most unforgiving playing field business has ever seen. Hardball redefines and reinterprets the meaning of competition in this new era—and outlines the classic strategies today's companies must use if they're in the game to win.

You can buy the book at Amazon. Also, the authors are offering a free PDF introduction titled the Hardball Manifesto which can be downloaded here.

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