Roger Martin | 2021 Shaping the Future of International Arbitration Conferences and Training

uh greetings and thank you for having me at your uh your conference uh barry asked me to speak a little bit about strategy um and if i can have the organizers put up the first slide i have only three slides i promise you it won't be much to say what is a strategy perfect so strategy is choice and here are the choices that i find in in strategy that helps any organization whether it's your overall organization or any one of the organizations represented by people in this are more successful if they make this set of

five choices they have an aspiration of winning aspiration they make a clear decision on where to play and where not to play and in that place how they win then what capabilities are necessary to win uh where they've chosen to play to meet their winning aspiration and then what management systems help build and maintain those capabilities to help them win where they've chosen to play to meet their winning aspiration the key is being choiceful and having all of these choices fit together and reinforce each other the absolute heart of strategy next slide is the where

to play how to win combination where you decide where you're going to play and how you're going to be better than anybody else in that space competition doesn't have to be brutal right it only is if everybody chooses the same where to play and everybody chooses the same how to win then it is doggy dog zero sum if instead all the players in a sphere like greener arbitrations uh pick places within it to play it can make the world a better place and have everybody succeed but to make this slightly more concrete i'll just use

an example next and last slide this is the world's greatest luxury hotel chain it's the largest luxury hotel chain in the world the most profitable luxury hotel chain in the world the one with the best reputation for uh for guest service and the best reputation for treating its employees well how did it become such a success story the envy of all in the in the industry well it's by making choices and choices not to do a lot of things so it made a choice to be the number one brand in the luxury hotel space globally

and it wanted to be the definition of luxury service so it started out with a with a high aspiration which is important for making a difference in the world but then it's where to play was very narrow and often when i tell people oh you should be careful and and not make your where to play over broad they their response is to say well then i'll be a small company no that's how you get to be a gigantic organization if necessary and in this case four seasons is they said we're only going to play in

hotel management they sold off all of their hotel properties they stopped being a hotel developer just a hotel manager that narrowed their focus so that they could be awesome at winning there they decided they would be in all key markets for high-end business travelers that that would that would be where the hotels are and at the top of each local market so they wouldn't have one standard but they'd say every market we're in we need to be the top hotel they chose to win in a different way than their competitors again this is absolutely critical

to strategy picking a way to win that is distinct from your competitors because if you're not distinct from your competitors you won't win you'll create a kind of brutal uh uh war of attrition and commoditization so they said based on founder izzy sharp's insight about travelers is that business travelers which now you are you as an organization are are are reducing but business travelers uh don't actually want to be in luxury hotels they want to be at home with their loved ones or at the office where they can be more productive and so what uh

izzy sharp said is that we are going to make our service not grand architecture and decorative sequence service but service to make up for what you left at home or at the office and to do that we need to have medium-sized hotels not the large hotels that are that our competitors uh have that where to play how to win choice was utterly distinctive it was backed by capabilities more knowledgeable and capable staff so that they have a recruiting process management systems that that is much more selective they plan long-term careers in an industry where careers

are short except for uh four seasons so they have management systems that enable them to have capabilities to deliver this unique form of service in their unique style of hotel to win where they've chosen to play and meet that winning aspiration of being the number one brand in the luxury hotel space and the absolute definition of of luxury service that from my experience in doing strategy for many decades 40 years is the secret to success of any organization picking a where to play where you can be the best at it and if you do that

what tends to happen as is the case with four seasons others choose different where to plays and different how to wins and everybody uh prospers the worst industries are the ones where everybody picks the same way to play and how to win and those are the industries that commoditize and there's a race to the bottom we want to race to the top and that is by choosing distinctiveness in your strategies and i hope for uh uh for your uh overarching organization and and all the uh the individual organizations that that you represent you will think

next time you think about strategy of picking distinctiveness be distinctive and win you will make the world a better place thank you very much and and have a great rest of your conference