What would have to be true?
Martin's decision-making method, the antidote to strategy-by-conviction.
Instead of debating which option is right, ask of each option: what would have to be true for this to be the right choice? Map the conditions, about customers, competitors, capabilities, economics. Then identify the pivotal, doubtful conditions and test those.
Why it works:
- Depersonalises the debate, you argue about conditions, not opinions
- Converts strategy into a set of testable assumptions
- Surfaces the crux: the one condition that, if false, kills the option
It embodies Strategy as Logic Not Analysis: in the world that The Aristotle Distinction calls "can be otherwise," you cannot prove a strategy in advance, you can only reason to the most plausible bet and monitor its load-bearing assumptions.
Used in the Olay Case Study (would women pay $18.99 at mass retail?) and central to how Martin builds Possibility Portraits.
Seam with the OKR system: this is the reasoning inside OKRs as Bets, Key Result Narratives and the assumption testing of Dual Track Discovery; Levels of Confidence grades the conditions it surfaces.
Our synthesis of published thinking, Roger Martin and A.G. Lafley, Playing to Win (2013), and Martin’s subsequent writing, 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.
Pressure-test your strategy with us →