Customer Reviews

Must-Win Battles: How to Win Them, Again and Again

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MWB stands for "Must Win Battles," which is the title and a common acronym throughout this this book. Authors Peter Killing, Thomas Malnight and Tracey Keys use "battle" to refer to competitors and "must-win" to mean these battles must be won. There are a lot of circumstances applicable to the concept of 'battle.' Examples and case studies cover management style, team work, planning, shortlisting, and executing, are noted. One example is Unilever in Africa, Nestle China, and a two-year case study of the CFF business groups from the words of an executive.

Three sections and nine chapters.

Section I: Preparing the Journey

Section II: Engaging the Team

Section III: Making it Happen

The different types of managers listed are the commander, diplomat, thinker, and motivator, who are defined and described. This is followed by the role of Emotional Intelligence in the workplace. EI is just as, and oft-times more vital than IQ. There are questions regarding this that the reader can answer for themselves so they can apply this concept to their own situations in life and in the work place. This book helps the manager and employees as individuals and allows them to reflect on others and themselves.

Different dynamics of MWB, which often may include change. While strategically planning and implementing Must-Win Battles there are Resisters, Bystanders, and Supporters. A time-line is almost always necessary and matrices and diagrams are presented, when planning and executing.

A good reality check is in chapter 4, which lists "Typical Company-Related Myths." Those who've worked in medium or large organizations can identity with the company values and slogans. But they're usually only slogans, because they aren't practiced. :)

At the end of the book there are:

A) The MWB Journey and Road map
B) The Denison Survey: Questions
C) Using the External Assistance

This is helpful for all people who manage and work in organizations of all types and sizes.

You can stop here.

This book's title tells the whole story. Must-win battles (MBWs) are those three to five challenges your organization must conquer to achieve its key objectives.

For most organizations of any size, that is not much of a list. Arriving at it requires focus and prioritization. Someone's priorities will not make the cut. If you do not, your goals will suffer from inadequate resources and attention.

To be successful, the authors, Peter Killing and Thomas Malnight, strategy professors at IMD, along with Tracey Keys, a consultant and manager with an expertise in complex strategy and organizational issues, believe strategy concepts must be combined with leadership and team building principles.

Before achieving MBW status, an objective must meet:

1. Make a difference.
2. Be market-focused.
3. Create excitement.
4. Be specific
5. Be tangible.
6. Be winnable.

Forsaking an academic approach, the authors argue MWBs must generate as much emotional energy and commitment as intellectual rigor. No two are the same. Yet each can be broken into two distinct phases: engaging the team and engaging the organization.

Phase one, engaging the team, consists of three steps:
1. An assessment of the starting conditions.
2. A definition of the battles to be fought.
3. Then, a commitment to one agenda.

Phase two, engaging the organization, motivates and marshals the organization.

1. Embed the agenda.
2. Engage the organization.
3. Maintain momentum while driving the last 10 per cent of your goal.

The authors employ case studies to illustrate their method. By establishing an MWB culture in your organization, the authors argue, you will create a sustainable competitive advantage by responding to your immediate market challenges quickly and efficiently.

By transforming the way in which your people work together, you will create a series of renewable competitive advantages in the market place.

In any organization, at any time, there are probably three to five key battles that must be won to achieve important goals, write authors Killing and Malnight. As you read this, you are probably thinking of the battles that are ongoing right now, the ones you need to win to get to your own goals. The first step, then is identifying what the key battles actually are and eliminating the sideshows that distract from the real issues. The authors advise that these battles are NOT internal, instead they are:

Market-focused
Something that makes a difference
Creates excitement
Are specific and tangible
Are winnable (!)

The example provided is one of Unilever, a large multinational company, working to gain market in Africa. But despite Unilever as an example, the strategy to pick your fight and win it is equally applicable to small business--if not more so.

One point I really admire is that the authors recommend that emotion be considered along with reason in how to win those battles. In other words, instead of steamrolling over emotion, which is a statement of condition, like the weather, the authors recommend dealing with it and generating excitement by directing emotion. There is also good advice on "not shooting the messenger" or how to take bad news. As one top CEO remarked to the press on how he achieved success "First, you have to deal with reality."

Excellent book and a must-read for business managers of any organization.

Q: What must be managed effectively to improve an organization's performance?

A: "First, [managers must] identify and win the right battles....But to win the battles, many organizations need to create a more effective top team and build an organization that [is] .less silo-based and capable of focusing all of its energies and capabilities on the chosen battles."

Q: What is a "must-win battle" (MWB)?

A: "MWBs are the three to five key battles that your organization absolutely must win to achieve its key objectives."

Q: What are the characteristics of a well-chosen MWB?

A: It must "make a real difference, be market focused, create excitement, be specific and tangible [and measurable], and be winnable."

Q: What is an "MWB journey"?

A: It is simultaneously both an emotional and intellectual process which must be completed by everyone involved in order to transform their organization. Ultimate success will depend upon a "shared understanding of the challenges and options facing the organization, an agreed list of three to five MWBs, a committed [and competent] team for each MWB, a high-level action plan for each MWB, new [better] ways of working together, individual commitments, and an initiation assessment of the starting conditions for engaging the organization."

Granted, this is an unorthodox way by which to begin a review but I really could not think of a better one. (No doubt someone else has.) The authors of this volume share what they have learned about why some organizational transformation initiatives succeed while most others fail. What they propose is a three-phase process (a "journey") which begins with a rigorous and thorough assessment of the current situation, followed by an engagement of the Team and then of teams for the MWBs, and then an engagement of the given organization which involves embedding the Team agenda and aligning the organization while maintaining momentum of the MWB initiatives.

I especially appreciate the authors' provision of all manner of reader-friendly devices throughout their lively narrative. For example, check lists of key points, graphics (maps and figures) which illustrate step-by-step segments of the "journey," and - whenever appropriate - caveats and disclaimers which correctly remind the reader that no course of action (including the one which the authors recommend) "fits all."

In the final chapter, they share eight "Lessons" learned from their research: five from successful MWB "journeys" and three from those which failed. In Appendix A, readers are provided with a comprehensive "MWB Journey Roadmap" and then in Appendix B, the authors provide "The Denison Survey: Questions" (copyright © by Daniel R. Rosen), a culture survey which is discussed on pages 47-48.

Presumably the authors agree with me that it would be a fool's errand for anyone to read and re-read their book, then rush - or even stroll -- to implement everything in it. It would also be a fool's errand to cherry pick diverse (albeit sound) ideas from a variety of different sources and then attempt to consolidate them in a single plan of "attack." Rather, I urge each reader to read Must-Win Battles with great care and then, preferably in discussion with others, co-determine what would be most appropriate to the given organization. Killing, Malknight, and Keys can be very helpful to that process of aanalysis and, especially, to identifying the highest priorities and most important objectives. My guess is that, by following that procedure, the "must-win battles" will reveal themselves.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Jason Jennings' THINK BIG, Act Small, Michael Hammer's The Agenda and Robert Mittelstaedt's Will Your Next Mistake Be Fatal?

Unilever's 19-page MWB journey described by Kees van der Graaf is a fantastic read. It not only illustrates the stages and steps aligned with the authors' belief of leadership principles, I find it most valuable is Kees van der Graaf sharing with us with his personal lessons learned from the processes such as "trust my gut more than ever before" and "We have great values; they come from the heart". This reminds me of another book titled "Head, Heart & Guts" by Dotlich/Cario & Rhinesmith. Indeed Kess van der Graaf brings these to life.

Must-Win Battles explains that hoary strategic discipline: The top management meeting where a new direction is sent and then subsequently implemented. If you have never been through a good version of this process, Must-Win Battles will give you helpful templates for what to do . . . and what to be prepared for.

The steps are broken down into a logical sequence: First you prepare (understand where your organization is now and appreciate how to lead such a process); then you engage with the rest of top management (open up their minds to gain a fuller view, focus on the 3-5 accomplishments that are most important, and gain a one-organization perspective); and finally you spread this out across the organization (sharing what you learned during the top management meeting, describing the new agenda, reporting on progress and celebrating victories).

This process orientation is relieved by a hypothetical case study that gives the book a slight flair like a fable would provide.

To me, however, the case study in chapter 8 from Unilever's ice cream unit in Europe was far more helpful.

The book has three main weaknesses. First, the perspective is primarily that of someone facilitating a process (an outsider like a professor or consultant). Second, the book would have benefited from a lot more case studies and examples. I got pretty tired of the same one. Since it was hypothetical, I couldn't get too engaged in it. Third, the authors don't do much to connect the dots between their process and the excellent work of The Balanced Scorecard Collaborative (and the superb books, Strategy Maps, The Balanced Scorecard, Alignment and The Strategy-Focused Organization).

But the book has a redeeming quality. The authors do a fine job of making the case for how to focus on just a few issues. In my experience with facilitating dozens of such sessions like they describe in this book, most management teams want to have lists of hundred of things to do. It's hard to get them to focus . . . and you run the risk of annoying people if you push too hard on that point. By distributing this book in advance of such programs, many consultants and facilitators will find their clients being more cooperative.

Nice work!

The book is so poorly published (typed in shades of grey and tables barely legible) that it is impossible to read. I was eager to read some groundbreaking content, I work in Shanghai China and have several MWBs to handle. However the message of the author cannot get through because of utterly poor publishing. I now understand why the publisher wouldn't have the readers search inside the book on amazon...

Everyone in business knows that to succeed, there are certain things that you must do right. However, not everyone is comfortable describing them as battles. The term brings forward thoughts of mighty armies slaughtering each other, where only the death of the other side will bring victory to your business. Success in business is not based on the defeat of another side, but on competition of another sort. You win in business by being more efficient in production, distribution or buying your raw materials more cheaply. Therefore, the very title of this book was something that I disliked.
As a metaphor for what should be done in business, the must-win battle (MWB) is more palatable. Used to describe ways in which companies can use the fear of business loss to motivate and focus employees, the thought of win or see the death of the business is helpful. To be successful in the modern world of global competition, the employees must be emotionally committed to the success of the company. All too often, the level of commitment is only verbal and transitory. When given the chance to revert to the old ways, they readily do so, leading to a return to the stagnant policies already known to be ineffective.
Another key is to choose the right battle to fight. If you try to fight every battle, there is no hope of any victory. Therefore, careful selection of where to expend resources is a critical aspect of executive success. In the end, the effectiveness of an executive all comes down to making the critical decisions as to where to invest time and money in order to expand the business. This book describes many ways this can be done, and while you may not agree with the descriptions, you cannot argue with the results.

It has become all too common that a company's executive management team has not established much less agreed upon strategic priorities upon which the rest of the company can act. The company becomes a series of independent silos that make for complicated matrix management structures and ultimately the inability to have a singular direction. The result is utter mediocrity in performance with a similar reflection on the bottom line. Co-authors Peter Killing and Thomas Malnight, professors of strategy at the renowned International Institute of Management (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland, along with longtime strategy consultant Tracey Keys, are looking to break this cycle with this very helpful albeit rather dryly written book. Representing their credentials, they have worked with more than thirty-five management teams to help them develop strategic priorities that make sense for their business and at the same time create energy and shared commitment.

Through this concerted consulting effort, the co-authors have come up with the intriguing concept of must-win battles, known by the foreboding acronym of MWBs, of which there are many for a company to recognize and face. With a constant use of military analogies, they inevitably look beyond the battle to the overall war, or as they call it in a more pacific tone, the must-win battle journey. There are five steps to this journey:
(1)--The leader decides that something needs to be done to break the status quo.
(2)--The top team reexamines the current status of the business and the organization.
(3)--The top team holds an offsite to identify the MWBs and reaches joint commitment toward action.
(4)--A trickle-down effect is triggered from the MWBs, and silos are dismantled to achieve victory.
(5)--MWBs continue to be reassessed, and new battles are identified.

The key to success, according to the co-authors, comes down to identifying what the optimal battles are, and they make no bones about what an intensive trial-and-error process this can be for a failing company. In fact, there should be more MWBs on the table than finally pursued, and the end result needs to be tangible in the marketplace and profitable to the company.

The most compelling sections of the book have to do with the messiness of this discovery process and how it cannot be limited to the executive team to identify. Moreover, the co-authors emphasize the criticality of offering practical tools and examples to the organization so that the battles become tangible to everyone. I just wish among the three collaborators that there is a greater sense of passion over the subject since the book can feel a bit too academic to motivate significant change. Regardless, as someone who has been bombarded with ineffectual rhetoric from high above, I recognize how much more valuable it would have been to receive such concrete, stepwise guidance.

If you've lived in the world of corporate America (and probably corporate anywhere else), you know how it goes... A seemingly endless parade of
initiatives and programs designed to revolutionize the company, each one being replaced by the new fad of the month. As a result, the staff becomes
numb to it all and nothing changes. But what if there was a way to focus on just a few "must-win battles" that rally the company? That's the
direction of the book Must-Win Battles: How To Win Them, Again And Again by Peter Killing, Thomas Malnight, and Tracey Keys.

Content:
Section 1 - Preparing the Journey: Understanding Your Starting Conditions; What Does It Take to Lead an MWB Journey?
Section 2 - Engaging the Team: Opening Windows - Sharing Perspectives and Realities; Defining the Battles - Colliding to Decide; Committing to One
Agenda - Breaking the Silos
Section 3 - Making it Happen: Engaging the Organization; From Tent to Tent - The Unilever Ice Cream Journey; Lessons from MWB Journeys Won and Lost
Appendixes - The MWB Journey Roadmap; The Denison Survey - Questions; Using External Assistance; Index

The authors take you through the process of forming and executing "Must-Win Battles" (MWB), corporate goals that take priority over all others. These MWBs are targets that, if achieved, would make a significant impact on your market share, profitability, or perhaps even your survival. Following a well-documented process, they explain now to work through the entire process, pitfalls and all. There's also an on-going fictional story of a company and CEO who embarks on this journey. Using the story, the straight "facts" surrounding the process start to take on flesh and blood, and you can see how issues arise and how they might be resolved. It's not an easy path by any means, but the payoff at the end can be substantial.

Reading through the book (and working in Information Technology), I was reminded of a very large software company. They are even referenced in
places within the book for key MWBs that propelled their company to the front of the market and has kept them there for many, many years. Conversely, it appears of late that they want to have a finger in absolutely everything, from consumer electronics and gaming to every aspect
of the computer desktop (and then some). The loss of a single overriding battle to be won has led to a thousand little battles that don't coordinate
well with each other. Although they can continue to throw money at the problems, you wonder if perhaps it's time for them to read this book and
take it to heart.

A solid plan for businesses looking to break the "business fad du jour" cycle. Not an easy process, but one well worth pursuing.