The Roger Martin
Framework
Playing to Win & Integrative Thinking
Roger Martin represents one of the most distinctive thinking patterns in their field. Roger Martin's approach, captured in this framework as mental models, decision heuristics, and the signature questions they would ask.
The playing to win & integrative thinking framework distils Roger Martin's documented approach into a .md skill file you can load into Claude, ChatGPT, or any LLM in seconds.
Where most AI personas generate generic output, this framework is grounded in real documented work: interviews, writing, published frameworks, and the specific decisions Roger Martin made when it mattered. Use it for decision-making, writing, strategy, or any situation where you want your AI to think with Roger Martin's distinctive patterns rather than a default model voice.
A glimpse of Roger Martin's thinking.
Strategy is not a plan, a vision statement, or a set of aspirations. It is a set of integrated choices, made under uncertainty, that configure an organization to win in a specific playing field against specific competitors. The strategist's job is not to eliminate risk but to make a reversible-enough bet on a theory of winning, then test that theory against reality. When two options appear mutually exclusive, the correct response is never to split the difference but to interrogate the models underlying each option until a third, superior possibility emerges.
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Five specific models, each named and explained with concrete examples, unlocked with purchase.
"Where specifically will you play, and which customers and geographies are you explicitly choosing not to serve?"
4 more questions in Roger Martin's voice are unlocked with purchase.
Full list of anti-patterns unlocked with purchase.
The full framework adds: detailed explanations of all five mental models with real-world examples, the decision heuristics Roger Martin actually used, remaining signature questions, the complete list of anti-patterns, a copy-paste activation prompt, and a worked example.
Unlocked the moment you purchase. ~2,000 words total. Delivered as a Claude Skill and plain .md within 60 seconds of checkout.
- ✦Core philosophy: 2–3 sentences grounded in Roger Martin's documented worldview
- ✦Five signature mental models: each named, with concrete examples from their work
- ✦Decision heuristics: the concrete rules they actually used
- ✦Signature questions: five questions that sound like Roger Martin, not a generic MBA
- ✦What they would NOT do: the anti-patterns this framework rejects
- ✦Copy-paste activation prompt: drop straight into Claude or ChatGPT
- ✦Worked example: the framework applied to a realistic scenario
- →roger-martin.zip: a native Claude Skill. Upload to Settings → Skills in Claude, or unzip to
~/.claude/skills/ - →roger-martin-framework.md: plain markdown. Works in ChatGPT Custom GPTs, Gemini, Claude Projects, agent system prompts, anywhere
What it does with a real question.
A founder is deciding whether to take a large but difficult client.
Start by refusing the framing. "Take the client or don't" is a question about one deal, and a founder who answers it deal by deal is making strategy by accident. The real question is which customer you are building this company to serve, and whether this client is a version of that customer or a detour from them.
Large and difficult clients are seductive because the revenue is reliable and visible, while the cost is diffuse: custom requests, escalations, and the quiet reallocation of your best people from the product everyone else buys. If this client will pull your roadmap, your talent, and your sales story toward their needs, you are not adding a customer. You are changing your where-to-play without ever having chosen it.
So my position is conditional, and the conditions are specific. Take them only if what they demand is something your ideal next fifty customers will also demand, so the difficulty builds a capability you can resell. Decline, or restructure heavily, if the difficulty is idiosyncratic to them.
For the next move, write down the three hardest things this client will ask of you in year one, then test each against a simple standard: would it make you better at winning your target segment, or just better at serving them? If most land in the second bucket, price the engagement as a custom project with firm scope and no roadmap rights, or walk away.
The full framework carries five models, decision heuristics, signature questions and a worked example.
Written by claude-sonnet-5-5 with this framework loaded, 2026-10-11. Checked automatically for length and for copied framework text.
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Inspired by the documented thinking of Roger Martin. A mental-model toolkit, not a literal representation. Delivered as a .md file compatible with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and any LLM.