Playscripting
Playscripting casts a business or sector as a drama, its dramatis personae, the links and rules connecting them, and the plots and subplots showing how value is created and captured, so you can write the current story, rewrite the roles and rules in your favour, and keep future-proofing it as the sector moves.
Five steps run left to right, from writing today's cast and rules through rewriting the roles to future-proofing the script.
Reach for this when…
- Your strategy deck lists competitors and market share but nobody can say who's really driving change in the sector.
- You want people to grasp the strategy as a story they're part of, not a chart they nod at in a meeting.
- The cast of players and the rules of the game are shifting and your plan hasn't caught up with either.
How to run it
- Write the cast: name the sector's players, their motives and their roles, including how customers and regulators see them.
- Map the links and rules connecting the cast, the spoken agreements and the unspoken conventions.
- Set out the plot: how value is created and captured today, and by whom.
- Rewrite the roles: recast players, court new ones, and use alliances to move yourself to the centre.
- Future-proof the script: keep revising it as customer needs, competitor moves and power shift.
A worked example
Situation. Grace Nakato ran Nakato Textiles, a garment manufacturer in Kampala, Uganda, cast for years as a low-cost cut-and-sew subcontractor with no say over the retailers who set every rule.
Applied. Writing out the sector's current playscript showed that the regional fabric mills supplying Nakato Textiles and its rivals alike were an overlooked character nobody had courted, so she rewrote the plot by co-investing with one mill in dedicated dye capacity her factory could draw on first.
Result. The rewritten script gave her leverage against the retailers she'd never had before, cutting the lead-time advantage her main competitor had relied on for years.
The catch
Playscripting only works if you write the honest current script first, actors as they actually behave, not as you wish, before jumping to the rewrite. It also demands real narrative discipline: a story too clever to explain on the shop floor won't mobilise anyone.
If your rewritten playscript still casts you in the same role with nicer scenery, you haven't rewritten anything.
Origin: Michael G. Jacobides (London Business School)