Integration
The property that turns five answers into one strategy, and Law I of Martins Three Laws: integration beats any single choice. Each box of the Strategy Choice Cascade must make the others more true.
Each box of the Strategy Choice Cascade must make the others more true. In the Olay Case Study, the masstige Where to Play only works because of the science-backed How to Win; the HTW only works because of the R&D Must-Have Capabilities; the capabilities persist only because of new Enabling Management Systems. Remove one link and the chain fails.
The test for integration: examine any pair of choices and ask whether each strengthens the other. If choices merely coexist, you have a list. If they reinforce, you have a portrait.
Integration is also why copying fails, a competitor can imitate any single visible choice, but replicating the system of choices requires becoming a different company. This is the deep mechanism behind The Cant-Wont Test.
Its absence is the signature of Playing to Play: many sensible moves, no compounding logic.
Our synthesis of Roger Martin’s published work, sources credited. Read the originals: they’re excellent.
Reading about method is not the same as running it. We install this system and build the capability that stays.
Turn strategy into executed strategy →