Customer Reviews

Hardball: Are You Playing to Play or Playing to Win

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

There are some good pointers that will be familiar to those who have studied strategy, but the authors' attempt to dress up existing knowledge using the "hardball" metaphor is just a gimmick.

The authors laud "hardball players" such as Dell, WalMart, and Toyota. These are the companies that pursue competitive advantage "with a single-minded focus." As if on cue, the "softball players" are trotted out -- those companies that "aren't intensely serious about winning." Wouldn't it be nice if it were this simple? The truth is that many businesses play hardball but lose anyway. Think about it.

The "hardball" sports analogy implies that the goal is to defeat one's competitors and, by doing so, win the game. As somebody who has built a successful business, experience tells me that this is not accurate. Truly innovative businesses learn how to change the game, or play their own game, and thereby deliver superior value and results. Defeating your competitor might be a by-product of success, but it is not the main objective. After all, Toyota didn't have to defeat BMW to become the powerhouse of the auto industry.

This book is too simplistic to be useful to anybody who already has a rudimentary grasp of corporate strategy.

Spend big bucks and hire The Boston Consulting Group to help you with your strategy . . . and what do you get? Hardball answers that question indirectly through sharing classic strategies for achieving competitive and economic advantage employed by BCG clients.

As a result, I think this book will be most appealing to MBAs thinking about working for BCG and potential clients who want to get a sense of what the outcome might be like.

For those who are well read in business strategy, this book will be a disappointment. It focuses on very little you haven't read or thought about many times before. Skip this book if you are in this category.

The strategies discussed include overwhelming competitors with superior resources (Frito-Lay versus Eagle Snacks), adjusting to take advantage of what customers want more of (more variety and better delivery from Wausau Papers), threatening competitors' sources of profits (Japanese auto makers go after the Big 3's positions in minivans and SUVs in North America), copy and improve on better business models (Batesville Casket applies automotive manufacturing techniques), encourage your competitor to retreat (attack the bottom of the market first in low margin categories and move up), refocus your business model on one set of advantages (CarMax), acquire others to build your strengths while making competitors more vulnerable (Masonite International), and change the nature of competition (get to low-cost sourcing earlier than competitors, secure low-cost assets sooner and play the Wal-Mart card carefully).

The overall metaphor for the book has its problems. If you play to win, you are playing hardball. Al Dunlap (author of Mean Business) was a hardball guy, but it didn't pay off at Sunbeam.

If I read past the words in the book, the concept they authors are advancing is one of being unrelenting in developing a strategy that creates a virtuous cycle of ever-expanding resources and advantages while creating a vicious cycle for competitors of ever-decreasing resources and advantages. "Keep 'Em Down" would have been a more accurate title for the book.

You will find scant information in the book about newer types of strategies, new forms of technology and new business paradigms. This book is about "rock 'em, sock 'em" competition among the industrial giants of the world.

I worked as a consultant and later as a project manager at BCG in the early 1970s, and I was struck that the kinds of strategies and clients described here have changed almost not at all since then. I do think Hardball better captures the classic BCG approach used in the early 1970s than any other book I have read published by the firm or its professional staff. Bruce Henderson would be proud of you!

From my perspective, I graded the book down for slight inaccuracies in places such as underplaying the legal risks in these strategies (the authors seem to think scaring off competitors with "signaling" is pretty risk-free), misstating some of the cases (did GM really crush Ford's ability to get investment grade bonds by pushing for zero percent financing? -- it looks more like mutual suicide to me), and praising more than was due in some cases (the Japanese car companies were very late to come into North America with minivans and SUVs). I also thought the metaphor got in the way of the message . . . rather than enhancing it.

In the words of author Gertrude Stein: "There's no 'there' there." I was very impressed with the first third of this book and then my interest in reading it simply fell off the edge of the table.

The book relies almost exclusively on anecdotal evidence to support its claims, and most examples aren't that well developed. Some conclusions are muddled or, in my view, considered "stretches."

One of my personal pet peeves is that this book is horribly edited. It is riddled with misspelled words and other grammatical nightmares. It was horribly distracting. It seemed like they almost rushed this book to print to coincide with the article in Fast Company magazine.

Even though it's only 159 pages, halfway through this book, I just couldn't wait to be done with it. I'm glad I checked it out of the library. I would have been p*ssed if I had paid $25 for it.

Using baseball vernacular, the authors of this book say that the most successful companies are those that keep their mind on developing strategies that gain them competitive advantage, which in turn will bring them substantial sales margins, above-average profit margins and earnings, lower-than-average debt, higher-than average credit ratings, and most important, leading market share. How can you possibly argue with that.

But then they talk about drawing a bright line in what they call the caution zone. That's the point where society clearly says stop: up say, until someone finds you've created a Love Canal; a Bhopal, India gas leak; or of course that lovely morning when the Justice Department's Anti Trust Folk come calling.

I could do without the sports comparisons, but the descriptions of the actions of various companies, the anecdotes of success, how the game is played in the major leagues (sorry, I had to) is quite interesting and well worth the low cost of the book. All you need is one or two good ideas to make up your cost and time.

What kind of fool would shell out $25 to buy a book he new he was going to detest? Uh, me. If you're impressed with platitudes, by all means read this book. It's amazing how obvious some of the recommendations are. If the authors had spent more time explaining how to know when to change strategies, rather than focusing on hindsight, this book could have been powerful. It's a shame, really. George Stalk and Rob Lachenauer have published much deeper research in HBR and other strategy journals. They wrote this book in extremely high level terms that yield almost zero insight. This book was extremely weak, basically, it just lacked substance. I definitely don't recommend this book unless you are looking for a VERY fluffy high level concepts.

Hardball is a refreshing, unapologetic return to what drives success - strategy. The authors do a great job laying out the precepts and the supporting case histories are clear and compelling. It is a driving read and it rewards rereading.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who is thinking that it's about time! There has been a disturbing trend recently of "soft" management books such as "Who Moved My Cheese?" that artfully avoid the harsh realities of a brutally competitive marketplace.

Hardball combines informative vignettes of winning strategies with prescriptive advice for managers in a context that will ring true for anyone who has been following the business press recently. While some may complain that Hardball preaches strategies and tactics that sound distasteful to some, one only need to look as far as respected industry giants such as Wal-Mart and Toyota to find Hardball practitioners. Stalk et al makes it clear that these and other companies got to where they are today by mowing down Softball players.

I would recommend this book most to managers who find themselves in companies that consistently play Softball today - companies afraid to target their competitors' profit sanctuaries, companies afraid to respond with overwhelming force - for a harsh dose of reality. I found the book to be both informative and entertaining in this respect.

Being a winner in business means acting like a winner. That requires having an aggressive mindset, not settling for second best and recognizing opportunity. Not every company or executive has the stomach to play hardball. Kicking an opponent when he's down, reneging on a compromise or having to make decisions that your managers will hate is never easy. But the business landscape is littered with the skeletons of companies that settled for "good, not great," only to be blindsided by competitors who played for keeps. Authors George Stalk and Rob Lachenauer clearly believe that "nice guy" and "business leader" live in different worlds and although some of their "hardball" tactics aren't all that tough or fresh, some clearly are. They say you have two basic choices: be the predator or the prey. We recommend this book to those who want to be the boss beast in that jungle out there.

I absolutely love this book. Recently business bestsellers have been focused on the soft aspects only. This is a necessary, but not sufficient condition. While "Hardball" focus on strategy and tactics to frustrate competitors it acknowledges the importance of empowering employees, delighting customers, and taking care of the ecosystem. While never walking borderline on ethical issues, it challenges companies to go back to the basics of capitalism.

It is important to make a distinction between recreation and competition, both of which can have great value and are most obvious in athletics as well as in the business world. According to Stalk and Lachenauer, "Softball players have no competitive advantage or, if they have one, may not know what it is or may be unable to exploit it. Often softballers can drift along for years, finding ways -- through trade loading, for example, or cost cutting -- to stay afloat from quarter to quarter. A few may seek to disguise their poor performance through activities -- such as creating shell customers -- that are questionable, if not illegal. In the parlance of pitching, such companies are throwing junk."

The focus of this book is on winners in business who have always played hardball: those who "use every legitimate resource and strategy available to them to gain advantage over their competitors...[and by doing so] attract more customers, gain market share, boost profits, reward their employees, and weaken their competitors' positions." Hardballers are wholly committed to winning "the game" and do so, key point, by always playing by its "rules." Their goal is always decisive victory so as to sustain dominance. With regard to social responsibility, it is noteworthy that Stalk and Lachenauer quote Milton Friedman's observation that there is "one and only one" in business: "...to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud."

In a company playing hardball, it is the leader's main role to keep alive the quest for competitive advantage and engage everyone else in that quest, constantly maintaining total focus on what Stalk and Lachenauer refer to as "the heart of the matter --- a very small set of vital issues whose resolution will determine the future of the organization." Obviously, Stalk and Lachenauer take a no-nonsense approach to playing to win. "Sometimes hardball players have to play a little rough and, when they do, they don't apologize for it." It is important to remember that the hardball perspective includes employees as well as customers, vendors, and service providers as well as competitors. Expectations are high and there is zero-tolerance of anything less than a best effort. When creating discomfort for others, hardballers must be willing and able to tolerate it themselves. They know what it means when claiming "We mean business." They do.

Think about the most successful professional teams such as the Boston Celtics, Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Yankees, and Montreal Canadiens. Members of each of their championship teams made all manner of personal sacrifices to achieve their team's success. I recall Jack Dempsey's comment that "champions get up when they can't." The most successful athletic teams are renowned for gaining and then sustaining dominance over an opponent. They work harder and they play smarter. And they always play by the rules, viewing with contempt those who don't. The same is also true of those companies whose names reappear year after year on the annual list of the Fortune 500, most of which also appear on Fortune's annual list of the Most Admired Companies. Not a coincidence.

I expect this book to generate a great deal of discussion because Stalk and Lachenauer take a hardball attitude toward their reader: "Are you playing to play or playing to win?" Hardballers know who they are. For them, this book states what is already obvious to them. As for softballers, this book can serve as a reality check. Hopefully they will read it and learn from it before it is too late, then make necessary adjustments of their mindset and behavior.