800-CEO-READ Excerpts

“It” is a strategy so powerful and an execution-driven mind-set so relentless that companies use it to gain more that just competitive advantage-they achieve an industry dominance that is virtually unassailable and that competitors often try to explain away as unfair. In their hardball “manifesto,” author George Stalk and Rob Lachenauer show how hardball competitors can build or maintain an enviable competitive edge by pursuing more of the class “hardball strategies”: unleash massive and overwhelming force, exploit anomalies, devastate profit sanctuaries, raise competitor’ costs, and break compromises.

Based on twenty-five years of experience advising and observing a range of companies, the authors argue that hardball competitors can gain extreme competitive advantage-neutralizing, marginalizing, or even destroying-without violating their contracts with customers or employees, and without breaking the rules.