Playing To Win

Explains how companies must pinpoint business strategies to a few critically important choices, identifying common blunders while outlining simple exercises and questions that can guide day-to-day and long-term decisions.

Winning at competitive games requires a results-oriented mindset that many players are simply not willing to adopt. This book walks players through the entire process: how to choose a game and learn basic proficiency, how to break through the mental barriers that hold most players back, and how to handle the issues that top players face. It also includes a complete analysis of Sun Tzu's book The Art of War and its applications to games of today. These foundational concepts apply to virtually all competitive games, and even have some application to "real life." Trade paperback. 142 pages.

A Wall Street Journal and Washington Post Bestseller A playbook for creating your company's winning strategy. Strategy is not complex. But it is hard. It’s hard because it forces people and organizations to make specific choices about their future—something that doesn’t happen in most companies. Now two of today’s best-known business thinkers get to the heart of strategy—explaining what it’s for, how to think about it, why you need it, and how to get it done. And they use one of the most successful corporate turnarounds of the past century, which they achieved together, to prove their point. A.G. Lafley, former CEO of Procter & Gamble, in close partnership with strategic adviser Roger Martin, doubled P&G’s sales, quadrupled its profits, and increased its market value by more than $100 billion in just ten years. Now, drawn from their years of experience at P&G and the Rotman School of Management, where Martin is dean, this book shows how leaders in organizations of all sizes can guide everyday actions with larger strategic goals built around the clear, essential elements that determine business success—where to play and how to win. The result is a playbook for winning. Lafley and Martin have created a set of five essential strategic choices that, when addressed in an integrated way, will move you ahead of your competitors. They are: • What is our winning aspiration? • Where will we play? • How will we win? • What capabilities must we have in place to win? • What management systems are required to support our choices? The stories of how P&G repeatedly won by applying this method to iconic brands such as Olay, Bounty, Gillette, Swiffer, and Febreze clearly illustrate how deciding on a strategic approach—and then making the right choices to support it—makes the difference between just playing the game and actually winning.

Playing to Win: Raising Children in a Competitive Culture follows the path of elementary school-age children involved in competitive dance, youth travel soccer, and scholastic chess. Why do American children participate in so many adult-run activities outside of the home, especially when family time is so scarce? By analyzing the roots of these competitive afterschool activities and their contemporary effects, Playing to Win contextualizes elementary school-age children's activities, and suggests they have become proving grounds for success in the tournament of life—especially when it comes to coveted admission to elite universities, and beyond. In offering a behind-the-scenes look at how "Tiger Moms" evolve, Playing to Win introduces concepts like competitive kid capital, the carving up of honor, and pink warrior girls. Perfect for those interested in childhood and family, education, gender, and inequality, Playing to Win details the structures shaping American children's lives as they learn how to play to win.

Learn how to win more often and have more fun playing pool. Book covers the mental and strategic elements required to become a winner.

‘. . . being a player from India defines who I am. When I play, it’s for my parents, my coach, and my country.’ Meet Saina Nehwal—India’s star badminton player and World Number 4, Padma Shri and Khel Ratna awardee, the girl who brought laurels to India by winning an Olympic medal at the age of twenty-two. In this fascinating memoir, she talks about her childhood and growing–up years; her relationship with the most important people in her life; the ups and downs of her celebrated career, from district level wins to the Olympics; and the sacrifices needed to succeed in any sport. She also reveals little-known facts and offers a peek into her many avatars—daughter, sister, student, and the regular girl behind the badminton prodigy. Find out what a typical day in Saina’s life is like—rigorous training, a strict diet, and no parties or sleepovers. But it’s not all work and no play; Saina loves to shop, eat ice cream (post wins only), and play games on her iPad! With candid photographs and badminton tips from the pro herself, this book showcases the making of a badminton champ—in her own words.

This book explains how and why the American armed forces embraced sports as a critical part of training and as entertainment for the men—and, eventually, women—in uniform. The author traces the development of military sports from the Spanish-American War through the end of World War II and shows how they became an integral part of military culture. Wakefield uses the military's sports program to explore issues of power, masculinity, and race as they were expressed and reinforced through athletic competitions and demonstrates how they strengthened hierarchical relationships. She also shows how the armed forces attempted to use sports to further national interests on the diplomatic front and to reduce racial and sexual tension. In addition, Wakefield argues for the interpenetration of the worlds of sports and war, showing how sports metaphors were used to masculinize the military enterprise and maintain morale. Wartime propelled interest in sports, and sports helped to maintain patriotism and gender identity among the troops. The book makes the case that the size and scope of the military's efforts to draw all soldiers and sailors into sports reflect the extent to which competitive athletics in the twentieth century have come to represent a means for advancing not only war but peace.

Playing to win means playing dirty… Holly Evans is intelligent, educated and crazy about sports—so how did she end up prancing about in a miniskirt and teasing her hair like some broadcasting bimbo? Of course, since she's already iced her journalistic integrity, Holly might as well indulge in a little fangirl lust for the ripped captain of Portland's hockey team. Luke Maguire sees right through Holly's bunny disguise, and he's ready to pull her into the locker room and strip it all off. Then Holly discovers someone on the team is profiting from a little over/under betting. Suddenly her lusting for Luke is going head-to-head with her reporting instincts. And if she's caught offside, there's no telling what the penalty will be…

Charles Barrett, a catering and event sales veteran of Marriott International, shares a blueprint to not only survive but thrive in sales. Whether you are a newcomer to sales, a veteran or thinking of switching careers, you will find value in this manual that covers the all-important very basics of selling. Barrett counters the myths, misconceptions, and self-imposed limitations salespeople place on themselves --and reveals how to overcome them. He also addresses such issues as: • Why you have to be a risk taker in sales. • The one big mistake many make when they sit down with a potential customer for their first face to face meeting and how you can avoid it. • The most taken for granted/overlooked part of a proposal and yet, in the end, it is the most important piece. He provides the answer with examples to turn that all around. • What you can do to engage or re-engage buyers who are locked into a “it’s all about the price” mindset. • How to negotiate with difficult negotiators or the person who is constantly stalling. • How using pro-active selling skills will always lead to much more value based, not price based, conversations—and how value based conversations will always be where you want to play the game. Barrett highlights the four pillars of selling as well as the six critical habits that form the must-have foundation for succeeding in sales. Other topics include prospecting and solicitation, networking, conducting well thought out and strategic first meetings and site reviews as well as creating customer focused and customer friendly proposals. How to manage your most important resource—your own time and how to successfully acquire the “gold keys” of sales—customer referrals and testimonials round out the picture. Filled with real-life examples, inspirational quotes and insights on securing customers trust this manual is an essential resource for anyone who wants to succeed in sales.