Winning Long-Term Games
Reproducible success strategies to achieve your long-term goals
2nd edition
or
Some reviews
"Luca's approach to risk management is novel and applicable to one's personal life beyond work. He is changing companies and lives with his ground-breaking approach. With him risk management is a tool to grow faster, not some non-value-adding bureaucracy."
Iñigo Alonso
Program Manager, Medtronic
"Gem upon gem of insight [...] a must-read [...] for all those who plan on being successful and who take the goal of achieving that success with the deadly, focused, and unwavering seriousness it deserves."
Guy Spier
Founder, Aquamarine Fund
"I like everything Luca has written, and this book exceeded my already high expectations. Can't wait to read it again tonight. It's that good."
Scott Mitchell
CEO, OCEG
"I learned very much from it! Luca's books have my highest highlight density."
Lance Johnson
CEO, Whiteboard Geeks
"One of the best strategy guides I've read for being a solopreneur or generally self-employed person […] Thought-provoking."
Paul Millerd
Author
"A sharp, no-nonsense guide that slices through the fluff most success books are padded with. This book doesn't sell dreams. It hands you systems that are reproducible, reliable, and refreshingly sane Highly recommended for entrepreneurs riding the chaos or professionals plotting their next pivot, or even investors trying not to outsmart themselves! It offers mental models one can actually use, especially if they are tired of sprinting in circles and finally ready to play a smarter, longer game."
Haaren Sanghvi
CEO, HSAG
"Very clear and compelling writing, which helped me develop and extend my mindset when it comes to stitching together the short-term games knowing that it's this practice that will lead to winning long-term games even if it doesn't feel like winning for a while."
Matthew Stafford
Founder, 9others
"Luca provides very concrete examples with the concepts and frameworks he brings forward. Just like he helped me understand how antifragility can be cultivated in individuals and organisations, playing the long game gets real for me as I make plans and decisions."
Maryse Lepage
Executive coach, ex-Shopify
"This densely packed gem of a book is one of the best I've ever read. [...] This book spells out important points more succinctly and successfully than anything else I’ve read. I really can’t recommend it enough. It is the rare type of book I expect to read and reread over and over again throughout the rest of my life."
Mike & Jennifer Rivers
About the book
The key to winning long-term games is to stop playing them as a succession of separate short-term games.
Yet, most people take the opposite approach.
- The manager who sees each interaction with her team as a separate game. Every time she talks to her subordinates, it's to get things done rather than develop their skills. As a result, she fails to build the long-term assets (a competent team) she needs in order to win her long-term game (a successful career).
- The spouse who lies as a way to avoid responsibility. If lying has, say, a 1% chance of getting discovered, it's a great short-term tactic (it succeeds 99% of the time) but a terrible long-term strategy (if you lie once a week, you have a 99.5% chance of getting caught over a decade).
- The solopreneur who sends weekly emails to their mailing list and sees each as a separate game. Therefore, they consume their audience's trust to generate more sales within a single email instead of building trust to create more sales within a few months.
These three examples show that approaching long-term games as a succession of separate short-term games is a bad strategy despite working great over short time horizons.
Instead, you should play short-term games not to win them but to progress your long-term objectives.
This book teaches you how to do that and much more: how to design and execute Reproducible Success Strategies, how to pre-empt failure and learn from the failures of others, etc.
Foreword by Guy Spier
What's inside
- The two principles of playing long-term games
and how to apply them to your personal and professional life
- Reproducible Success Strategies
and how to determine whether a strategy is reproducible
- The three properties of good long-term strategies
that can make success almost inevitable (for all realistic goals)
- Why playing long-term games doesn't imply delaying gratification
but actually enables you to enjoy life today
- How to leverage the long term
to open up better options and opportunities
- How to manage risks
without losing time or opportunities
- How to design a strategy that works
without committing to an excessively rigid structure
- The 1% life
and how to achieve it
- And much more…
About the author
Luca Dellanna is the author of more than ten books. He is a researcher in adaptive systems and a management advisor.
Luca has also been teaching risk management and related topics for over ten years at the University of Genoa (as an external lecturer), and frequently gives guest lectures at many public and private institutions.
He has been a speaker at some of the most prestigious conferences and podcasts, such as Nudgestock (the largest behavioral sciences conference) and Econtalk (twice). He has been featured on The Spectator and other famous newspapers.
Luca lives in Turin, Italy, though he also frequently spends time in Singapore.
Part of Luca's portfolio / trusted by leaders at…
Luca is fluent in EN, IT, FR, ES, and has experience in the following industries: agricultural, automotive, banking, chemical, consulting, consumer services, electronics, fast-moving consumer goods, finance, fintech, food, hospitality, logistics, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, professional services, retail, semiconductors, software, and tech.
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Part of Luca's portfolio / trusted by leaders at…
Luca is fluent in EN, IT, FR, ES, and has experience in the following industries: agricultural, automotive, banking, chemical, consulting, consumer services, electronics, fast-moving consumer goods, finance, fintech, food, hospitality, logistics, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, professional services, retail, semiconductors, software, and tech.
Winning Long-Term Games
"Luca's approach to risk management is novel and applicable to one's personal life beyond work. He is changing companies and lives with his ground-breaking approach. With him risk management is a tool to grow faster, not some non-value-adding bureaucracy."
Iñigo Alonso
Program Manager, Medtronic
Also available as an audiobook!