Hardball: Are You Playing to Play or Playing to Win

george stalk jr. rob lachenauer robert lachenauer john butman

Great companies stumble and fall when they lose it. Highfliers crash when a competitor notices they don't have it. Start-ups shut down if they can't develop it. "It" is a strategy so powerful and an execution-driven mindset so relentless that companies use it to gain more than just competitive advantage--they achieve an industry dominance that is virtually unassailable and that competitors often try to explain away as unfair. In their "hardball manifesto," authors George Stalk and Rob Lachenauer of the leading strategy consulting firm The Boston Consulting Group show how hardball competitors can build or maintain an enviable competitive edge by pursuing one or more of the classic "hardball strategies": unleash massive and overwhelming force, exploit anomalies, devastate profit sanctuaries, raise competitors' costs, and break compromises.

Based on 25 years of experience advising and observing a range of companies, the authors argue that hardball competitors can gain extreme competitive advantage--neutralizing, marginalizing, or even destroying competitors--without violating their contracts with customers or employees and without breaking the rules. A clear-eyed paean to the timeless strategies that have driven the world's winning companies, Hardball Strategy redefines and reinterprets the meaning of competition for a new generation of business players. George Stalk and Rob Lachenauer are directors of The Boston Consulting Group. Stalk is the author of Competing Against Time, the classic work on time-based competition.

Genres businessmanagementleadership

192 pages, Hardcover

First published August 31,2004

This edition

Format: 192 pages, Hardcover
Published: October 1, 2004 by Harvard Business Review Press
ISBN: 9781591391678
ASIN: 1591391679
Language: English

About the author

george stalk jr.

George Stalk Jr. is Senior Partner and Managing Director for The Boston Consulting Group as well as an Adjunct Professor of Strategic Management for the Rotman School of Management at University of Toronto. He joined BCG in 1978 and has worked in its Boston, Chicago, Tokyo and Toronto offices. His professional practice focuses on international and time-based competition. He holds a BSEM from the University of Michigan, an MSA&AE MIT and MBA from Harvard Business School. George Stalk Jr. co-authored a best-seller on “time-based” competition, Competing Against Time, and Kaisha: The Japanese Corporation. A somewhat controversial book, Hardball: Are You Playing to Play or to Playing to Win? was published in October of 2004. George Stalk Jr.'s latest book: Memos to the CEO: Strategies in Our Future was published in early 2008. He has also been published in several business publications, including the Harvard Business Review where he has won the McKinsey Award for the best article.