Just What is a Winning Aspiration and Why Do You Need One?
All organisations need to set a clear and ambitious direction in order to succeed. This is easy to agree with but harder to establish in practice.
The concept of the Winning Aspiration comes from Roger L. Martin and A. G. Lafley’s “Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works (2013)” and replaces the conventional wisdom of creating separate multiple directional statements such as mission and vision.
Many organizations create multiple statements for purpose, vision, and mission. Or vision, mission and values. Or some other combination. Having sat in workshops designed to produce these statements we agree with Martin’s point of view – they quickly become a “tangled mess”. Questions and confusion arise quickly “Is that the vision or the mission?”; “Which should we write first?”; Does the vision create the mission” and so on.
Playing to Win replaces this potentially confusing pair or trilogy of statements with a single winning aspiration. Martin chose the word to reflect a “strong desire combined with high goal” and to signal that “the organization seeks to add value to customers in a sufficiently unique manner that it will do so better than anybody.”
Strategy as Choice
The Winning Aspirations is based on the simple idea that: strategy is choice, described in Playing to Win.
In making that assertion Martin is in good company. Richard Rumelt, in his much admired classic ‘Good Strategy, Bad Strategy’, writes: “Good strategy requires leaders who are willing and able to say ‘no’ to a wide variety of actions and interests. Strategy is at least as much about what an organization does not do as it is about what it does.”
The Winning Aspiration is the First Decision in A Set of Well Defined Choices
Martin goes further in defining the choices as “a set of interrelated and powerful choices that positions the organization to win.” These are the five stages in the Strategy Choice Cascade, none of which is easy, precisely because they are framed as choices:
- What is our winning aspiration?
- Where will we play?
- How will we win where we have chosen to play?
- What capabilities must be in place to win?
- What management systems are required to ensure the capabilities are in place?
It’s important to recognize two points each has in common. Firstly, they are interrelated and cannot be created in isolation. Secondly, each plays a part in positioning the organisation to win. The winning aspiration is the first of these five strategic choices and as such acts a form of guide for the organisation throughout the process.
There Can Only be One
Many organizations create multiple statements for to help set direction. It might be purpose, vision, and mission. Or vision, mission and values. Playing to Win replaces this potentially confusing pair or trilogy of statements with a singular winning aspiration. Martin chose the word to reflect a “strong desire combined with high goal” and to signal that “the organization seeks to add value to customers in a sufficiently unique manner that it will do so better than anybody.”
It’s Not a Strategy
Numerous commentators and experts wrongly equate vision with strategy, seeing the purpose of a vison as the vehicle to create or encapsulate a long-term strategy. The strategy cascade and its five elements refute this – creating a vision is not enough to say you have a strategy.
Whilst it doesn’t really matter what label you apply to the winning aspiration it is important to recognize that it is as start of a interrelated set of set of choices, and as such part of strategy but far from all of it.
It’s also not a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal). If you have never heard of a BHAG, feel free to skip this reference. If you have, and would like to understand the differences between it and a Winning Aspiration you can read about them in this article.
Hallmarks of an Effective Winning Aspiration
An effective winning aspiration, as described in Playing to Win, should have three dominant characteristics. Firstly, it should be highly motivational for both employees and customers. Secondly, it should be possible to measure progress against it. Lastly, the winning aspiration needs to be able to help direct and guide the organisation through the other choices in the cascade
Martin cites PayPal’s original winning aspiration “To build the Web’s most convenient, secure, cost-effective payment solution.” This is motivational and sets direction. In addition, the words convenient, secure, and cost-effective can be defined so that progress against them can be measured.
Creating a Winning Aspiration
To create a winning aspiration we start by identifying the drivers that create winning conditions. Some of these drivers will be internal, some external. We find the following questions helpful in starting to uncover the favorable factors.
- What trends favour increased purchasing? (external)
- What expertise/capabilities do we have that enables us to address the market? (internal)
- What weaknesses/gaps can we see in the competitive landscape that we may be able to exploit? (external)
- Are there potential buying triggers can we identify? (external)
Validating a Winning Aspiration
Once we’ve created a winning aspiration it needs to be validated. We start this work by reviewing the favorable factors. An effective winning aspiration will have at least three of the big four favourable factors described above.
Next we test against the criteria in Playing to Win:
- Is the winning aspiration highly motivational for both employees and customers
- Is it possible to measure progress against it?
- Will it help guide the organisation through the strategic cascade?
Once validated we can move on to the determining where to play and how to win.
Conclusion
For some startups the winning aspiration is clear from the start, in others it requires development or refinement so that it will produce WTP/HTWs. A mature company might determine that there really is no clear winning aspiration and develop one based on many years of operational experience. Whatever the scenario, strategy is choice – and your choices start with a winning aspiration.