Winning Now Winning Later by David M. Cote Summary

Winning Now, Winning Later provides a framework for balancing short-term business performance with long-term strategic investments. David M. Cote, former Honeywell CEO, shares proven strategies to avoid costly short-term practices while fostering sustainable growth, drawing from his experience growing Honeywell’s market cap from $20B to $120B. The book offers tools for leaders to navigate recessions, leadership transitions, and investor pressures.

This book is essential for CEOs, executives, and managers seeking to align quarterly results with multi-year goals. Entrepreneurs and mid-career professionals will gain actionable insights on decision-making, resource allocation, and cultivating organizational resilience. It’s particularly valuable for leaders in tech, manufacturing, or data-driven industries facing shareholder demands.

Cote led Honeywell’s transformation into a $120B company during his 16-year CEO tenure. He served on the Simpson-Bowles Commission under President Obama and received Barron’s “World’s Best CEO” recognition five times. His hands-on experience balancing operational efficiency with R&D investments grounds the book’s principles in real-world success.

Cote’s core framework emphasizes:

• Intellectual rigor: Challenging binary thinking to pursue conflicting goals simultaneously
• Strategic transparency: Honest conversations about business challenges and opportunities
• Process discipline: Systematically aligning daily operations with long-term vision.

These principles enabled Honeywell to outperform the S&P 500 by 2.5x.

The book advises:

• Identifying short-term practices that undermine long-term value (e.g., excessive cost-cutting)
• Strategic R&D investments with clear ROI timelines
• Maintaining growth initiatives during recessions
• Using data-driven metrics to track dual objectives.

Cote demonstrates how Honeywell increased automation investments while delivering consistent quarterly growth.

Unlike theoretical frameworks, Cote’s approach was battle-tested at Honeywell during the 2008 crisis and multiple leadership transitions. The book combines operational playbooks with psychological strategies to counter investor myopia. It uniquely addresses sustaining dual focuses across economic cycles, supported by 25+ case studies.

“The same discipline that delivers short-term results becomes the foundation for long-term success”. This reflects Cote’s belief that operational excellence and strategic vision are mutually reinforcing, not opposing forces. Another pivotal analogy compares leadership to engineering the Panama Canal – requiring simultaneous precision and long-range planning.

Yes, it identifies pitfalls like:

• Over-indexing on quarterly earnings at the expense of R&D
• Failing to communicate long-term visions to stakeholders
• Neglecting cultural foundations during rapid scaling.

Cote shares how he avoided these at Honeywell by tying 30% of executive bonuses to 5-year metrics.

The strategies are particularly applicable to current issues like:

• Supply chain resilience in AI-driven markets
• Balancing automation investments with workforce development
• ESG pressures versus shareholder returns.

Cote’s recession playbook helps leaders manage inflation and geopolitical uncertainty while funding innovation.

While Collins focuses on foundational practices, Cote specifically addresses executing dual time-horizon strategies in complex organizations. Good to Great analyzes what makes companies endure, whereas Winning Now provides tactical tools for maintaining endurance amid modern market volatility. Both emphasize disciplined execution but target different leadership challenges.

Readers gain access to:

• A 10-point checklist for strategic reviews
• Templates for communicating multi-year plans to investors
• Metrics frameworks to track leading/lagging indicators
• Case studies on sustaining R&D during the 2008 crisis.

These tools stem from Honeywell’s playbook for doubling innovation spending while improving margins.

Absolutely. The book adapts enterprise-scale strategies for smaller teams, emphasizing:

• Minimum viable planning horizons
• Budgeting “future buckets” alongside operational costs
• Building investor alliances early.

Cote illustrates this with examples from his GE Appliances leadership, where he balanced product launches with factory modernization.

Yes – its focus on sustainable growth amid AI disruption and climate challenges makes it increasingly relevant. Cote’s emphasis on “anti-fragile leadership” helps organizations thrive in volatile markets. With 85% of Fortune 500 leaders facing short-termism pressures, the book provides actionable solutions tested across economic cycles.