The lemonade stand strategy

“Strategic choices need to be made simultaneously, not sequentially.”

A.G. Lafley, former CEO of Procter & Gamble, and Roger Martin, former dean of the Rotman School of Management, created the ✨ Strategy Choice Cascade ✨ as a framework for designing and implementing business strategy.

As the name implies, it’s a set of 5 cascading questions, with each decision relying on the previous choice to inform the next.

And because everyone likes to explain business, money, and real estate concepts through this example, I’ve taken the traditional summertime lemonade stand through the framework.

🌟 What is your winning aspiration? This is the purpose. Why you exist. The big idea.

📍 Where will you play? Geographically and demographically, this is where your audience comes into the picture.

👑 How will you win? The way you will win with your chosen audience. Whether it’s cost or differentiation, this is your competitive advantage.

(In this case, I’m assuming that there’s going to be quite a few lemonade stands nearby. So this is an opportunity to differentiate.)

🛠 What capabilities must be in place? This is what you need to able to do to deliver on your advantage.

⚙️ What management systems are required? Finally, the infrastructure is necessary to have in place to be able to “win.”

Ultimately, true strategy is about making choices.

So when life gives you lemons…

Make choices. (And lemonade.)