Hardball

Focusing on the soft stuff might be in vogue but it's not the way to succeed in business, according to this consultant. James Hall reports George Stalk has two files: one for fan mail and one for hate mail. In the first file, reviewers and readers applaud the Boston Consulting Group veteran's book about competitive advantage, Hardball (Harvard Business School Press 2004), for introducing some much-needed realism into the strategy debate. In the other file, just as large, he is accused of promoting a business ethic that would make Wall Street's Gordon Gekko blush. The message is simple: successful companies play to win, and winning is what counts. Hardball presents a series of case studies showing how and why. The subtext is that the "soft stuff"—corporate governance, social responsibility, gender diversity, work-life balance—isn't that important. Stalk, who in person is nothing like the testosterone-fuelled ball-breaker his critics suggest he admires (he says, in fact, that he admires John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and Bill Gates), is not against the soft stuff. He just thinks it can only be meaningfully addressed by sustainably competitive companies.