The Shock of the New

The Conference Board Review^® Article

By Robert A. Brawer

The Game-Changer

How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth With Innovation

By A.G. Lafley and Ram Charan

Crown Business, $27.50

Robert A. Brawer is former CEO of Maidenform Worldwide and author of Fictions of Business: Insights on Management From Great Literature. He reviewed Joseph Badaracco's Questions of Character in the March/April 2006 issue of Across the Board.

Is there any doubt that A.G. Lafley is an authority on innovative consumer marketing? Since taking over as CEO of Procter & Gamble in 2000, Lafley has broadened the company's consumer base worldwide, raised the level of successful new-product introductions to an unprecedented 50 percent, revitalized P&G's legendary consumer research, and reorganized the company as a whole. If only as a personal account of how he has accomplished all this, The Game-Changer is of singular interest — even if it skimps on discussion of Lafley's setbacks.

This revealing book aims to be more than one man's success story. Lafley and Ram Charan's definition of "game-changer" applies to any leader who alters the game his business plays or conceives "an entirely new game" — in other words, changing the consumer's perception of product categories through relentless innovation. And the clearest path to long-term, profitable growth, the authors argue, is through the strategy of consumer-led innovation.

Now, there is nothing original about consumer-led innovation. Peter Drucker, duly acknowledged in this book, has long counseled executives on this score. The question here, then, is whether the authors' case is itself as innovative as the new-product introductions that P&G purveys. What is arresting about The Game-Changer is the zeal and thoroughness with which Lafley and Charan pursue the task of deeply understanding P&G's diverse consumers. More than an account of how to differentiate products and brands, the book is about changing a company's organization and culture in order to focus its attention on the consumer — not the CEO — "as boss." Ambitious? Certainly.

The Game-Changer is clearly intended to reach a broad readership. The inclusion of consultant Charan as co-author — testifying to the successes of companies such as IBM, Nokia, and GE, with business models similar to that of P&G — broadens and enriches the overall presentation. Similarly helpful is a section at the end of every chapter entitled "Ask Yourself on Monday Morning." This is a series of wake-up questions that leaders and managers might consider before easing into their routine work. Some of these self-administered questions may seem obvious: "Do you know . . . your consumer or customer?" "How does your brand, product, or service fit into her or his life?" Yet many executives ignore such questions for the very reason that they are obvious, even though long-term success requires such constant attention to basics.

Pages: [1] 2

Comments? Write a letter to the editor.

Return to the May/June 2008 The Conference Board Review® issue.