“Welcome to a conversation About purposeful, effective leadership. At a time when it is crucial.”
Welcome to Leading To Win, a conversation about purposeful, effective leadership at a time when it is crucial.
I’m partnering with [TBD] to publish a series of practical, actionable tips on leadership and management. I think these ideas can help many businesses, organizations, and teams—hopefully yours.
Roughly two- to three-minute reads, these articles will provide how-to insights on real challenges, difficult choices, and important but perhaps unseen opportunities facing leaders and managers right now.
Where to play and how to win are the heart of a successful strategy.
-A.G. Lafley
Why you?
As a leader or manager of a small business or nonprofit organization, or as an independent worker selling your own product or service, you are being challenged now more than ever.
Small business is the lifeblood of our economy. But small business is inherently risky business. One in five small businesses fail in the first year. Half go out of business within five. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, small-business jobs are disproportionately at risk.
Could more effective leadership reduce the failure rate and increase the success rate? I believe so. And why not start testing that hypothesis here in the Sarasota region, with our large share of small businesses, sizable nonprofit sector, and diverse and growing workforce of freelancers?
why me?
Like Vince Lombardi, I believe leaders are made, not born. There is a leader inside many of us, looking for a stimulus or reason to emerge. And sometimes in life, you have a chance to step up and out—to lead. I am proof of all three.
I’m probably best known for my years as CEO of Procter & Gamble (2000–09; 2013–15), an “accidental” role I stepped into after more than two decades of working my way up through different P&G business units. I also have deep experience with public-private partnerships. In P&G’s hometown, I chaired the Cincinnati Center City Development Corp. (3CDC), which has invested more than $1.3 billion in mostly private dollars to revitalize the downtown and adjacent neighborhoods over the past two decades. Now I am founding CEO of The Bay Park Conservancy, the nonprofit charged with implementing a long-term, citizen-driven master plan for Sarasota’s Bayfront. I’m also involved with up to a dozen different companies as an advisor, coach, or board member.
I’m not special. What I am is a veteran CEO with broad experience across small, medium, and large for-profit and nonprofit businesses. My five decades of work experience stretch from the oil crisis and recessions of the 1970s, through 9/11 to the global financial crisis and recession in 2008–09, to the present pandemic. What I have learned could help you and your small business, nonprofit, or independent operation.
why now?
We’re living in a VUCA world. That’s Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous. I believe that small businesses, nonprofits, and independent operators need all the help and support we can give them to navigate the current crises and survive.
Recently I’ve been working through ideas for a book on leadership. Following previous books on innovation and strategy, I envision it as the third in a trilogy of sorts on how to make a difference through your business, your organization, or your team.
But leadership is ultimately about choices. And I’ve chosen to share relevant lessons that I’ve learned right now, when business and nonprofit leaders must make their own critical choices.
I also want to hear about your experiences with how—or whether—these ideas help. And I’d love to learn your stories about leading in this moment. My (eventual) book will need real-world examples of effective leadership in practice. But they won’t matter if the leaders I seek to help are no longer in business by the time it comes out.
Articles
Fundamentals
business strategy
leadership
nonprofits
Freelancers
covis + crisis
About A.G.
A.G. Lafley is the former CEO of Procter & Gamble, who worked for decades in and with large public companies. Over the past 15 years, he has turned more of his attention, energy, and time to small businesses and nonprofit organizations. He currently serves on the boards of Omeza, Snapchat, Tulco, Hamilton College, and the Sarasota Bay Park Conservancy. A.G. is the author of two best-selling books, The Game Changer on innovation and Playing to Win on strategy, as well as numerous articles on leadership and management for Harvard Business Review.