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Rebecca Homkes joins CNBC Squawk Box Europe to discuss the Davos dialogue, the CEO challenge of leading through volatility, what is next for the tariff debate, where companies are on their AI transformation, and more importantly, what it takes to lead AI adoption in a way that translates to value creation.
Rebecca Homkes joins Bloomberg Surveillance to discuss the new Fed Chair, the criticality of central bank independence, the key takeaways from the Davos dialogue, and what it means for CEOs to lead through this current environment.
Rebecca Homkes says that the idea of an AI bubble isn't black and white, there's 'shades of gray' as the market tries to assess tech earnings. Homkes also spoke to the K-shaped economy, saying that companies need to really think about who their ideal consumer is and stop trying to appeal to a broad base.
Thinkers50 Awards
Thinkers50 has shortlisted Rebecca Homkes and Survive Reset Thrive for its Thinkers50 Strategy Award.
The Thinkers50 Strategy Award highlights a thinker providing outstanding insight, clarity, and impact in the field of strategic thinking.
Every business, everywhere, must deal with some level of uncertainty. But today’s extraordinarily high levels of uncertainty, particularly in the retail and CPG industries, go all the way to 11 (apologies to This is Spinal Tap). However, uncertainty isn’t all bad, according to Dr. Rebecca Homkes.
The Independent Press Awards have selected Survive Reset Thrive as the 2025 Leadership Book of the year. Dr. Rebecca Homkes explains how proactively to stabilize your business to withstand and grow through market shocks, reset your strategy to take account of new realities and thrive through uncertainty.
Supply chains may come to resemble those during the pandemic, so manufacturers, needing better data and more visibility on the chaos, might increase tech spend and speed their digital transformations—despite cash crunch from surging materials costs, panelists stress.
“It sounds cliché, but uncertainty is the new certainty,” said Dr. Rebecca Homkes, academic and author of Survive Reset Thrive, a book about strategic leadership.
DisrupTV:
Top 24 books of 2024
DisrupTV's Top 24 Books of the Year Award is a highly esteemed list of authors. This elite list recognizes top authors focused on making an impact in the world through exceptional leadership, innovation, out-of-the-box ideas, mindset shifts and lessons learned for impact.
CX Network:
Navigating the uncertainty of customer experience
A new book explains the power of shifting from plans to preparations in order to navigate the unknown. CX Network catches up with the author, Dr. Rebecca Homkes.
Critique: Exceptional, insightful, informative, 'real world practical', "Survive, Reset, Thrive: Leading Breakthrough Growth Strategy in Volatile Times" will prove of immense value for readers with an interest and responsibility for business management, planning, leadership, morale and motivation.
Fast Company:
Stop assuming the worst in a state of uncertainty
Not knowing what’s going to happen when we’re watching a movie can be thrilling. Edge-of-your-seat excitement is fun entertainment, and we pan films with predictable endings. When the uncertainty is in our own life, however, the experience is less enthralling. In fact, it can be downright negative.
Forbes:
Rethinking Business Execution: Leading In Volatile Times
Behind every business success or flop, there’s a strategy that either worked or failed. So, one must be careful about which approach(es) to adopt.
One promising strategy approach is found in a new book by Dr. Rebecca Homkes. It’s titled Survive, Reset, Thrive: Leading Breakthrough Growth Strategy in Volatile Times.
Changes at work can stir up anxiety, anger, and frustration. Being affected by these dynamics isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s normal not to feel normal for a while. In this article, Rebecca Homkes outlines six strategies to try to help yourself stay grounded amidst uncertainty.
External uncertainties don’t need to limit your company’s potential for growth. How business leaders can set up their business for success in any market condition.
This leading blogger cites Homkes’ book as “a timely, comprehensive, and essential read for business leaders looking to take the next step toward ensuring high growth for their companies.”
Fast Company:
Senior Managers don’t trust their colleagues to get things done
A new execution survey finds very few senior managers think they can trust colleagues in different departments. Here’s how to change that.
Fast Company:
Don’t make another plan for 2024. Do this instead.
Plans articulate a base option, but they’re grounded in a series of events that are not only unpredictable but also often uncontrollable.
Publications and Articles
Growth Strategy, Strategy Through Uncertainty, Decision-Making and Agility, and the SRT Loop
Chief Executive
Six Questions To Bring Insight Back To Strategy
For too many organizations, the strategy process is broken. The outcome? The same set of generic priorities other organizations have. It’s time to bring the insights back into growth strategy, and these are the six questions to address to do so.
P&G Signal:
Uncertainty is a great time to grow
The author and growth strategist, Rebecca Homkes, says uncertain times provide a unique opportunity to reframe strategy, learn from customers, and pull ahead of the competition.
Smart Brief:
4 ways to beat decision paralysis
Avoid decision paralysis by codifying what "good" decisions look like and clarifying your values.
ICAEW:
Growth strategies in an environment of uncertainty and chaos
What new metrics should business start measuring and tracking given the current economic uncertainty and chaos? Economist Rebecca Homkes outlines five new metrics for a volatile world.
Directors and Boards:
How to Strategically Prepare for Tariffs
Tariffs, taxes and tensions have already shaken up the hyper-changing news cycle and geopolitical relationships.
European Business Review:
Nuance In, Noise Out: Helping your Team Maintain Focus Amidst Uncertainty
Great strategy thrives when it breaks critical tension. Strategic leaders have long balanced timeframes, focus versus adaptability, and clarity amidst uncertainty, but pressures are mounting, and new information enters faster than systems can filter it.
Smart Brief:
Communication does not equal understanding: Why shared context is key
Without first establishing shared context, communication with your staff may be ineffective. Rebecca Homkes offers a four-step solution.
The often-frantic yearend festive season comes with another season for marketing leaders—planning and budgeting for the year ahead. We are trained to begin each year with plans firmly in place, metrics agreed, and a cadence of review meetings set.
But what if being very confident in your plan is not the best course of action?
Marketing Profs:
The Best Way for Marketers to Get Ready for 2025's Uncertainty (Hint: It's Not Trad Planning)
Leader to Leader:
Thrive through external uncertainty by building internal predictability
Strategy is about making choices about where to play and where not to play, how to win in your chosen space, where to invest and disinvest, how to allocate resources among many competing priorities, and—critically—what to do.
Fortune:
Performing a Hard Reset to Survive
Don’t just survive…thrive. It’s a phrase leaders hear often during market turbulence. The problem is it misses a critical point: just surviving will not advance an organization to a state where it will thrive.
Built In:
Tips to Beat Decision Paralysis
Elections. AI transformations. Regulatory changes. Geopolitical tensions. Today’s leaders face unpredictable disruptive events that can overturn the old certainties.
The problem is not that these unpredictable events happen; the problem is that when they do, organizational leaders often freeze or panic and then falter through the uncertainty that follows.
Chief:
What Differentiates a Great Team From a Good One During Times of Crisis
Inflation. Wars. A pandemic that prompted a rapid shift to virtual work. Executives have been forced to lead through upheaval, whether they like it or not. No one is sure what’s next — for the workplace or the globe. The only thing that’s clear: uncertainty is here to stay, and the key to success is to expect the unexpected.
Fast Company:
Don’t Make Another Plan For 2024 - Do This Instead
Nothing feels more comforting to a leader than starting the New Year with the annual plan. But ironically, the more planning is done, the less progress is made.
Why? Because the only thing we can be certain of in the year ahead is uncertainty.
Harvard Business Review:
Make the Right Personnel Decisions Now to Thrive After the Crisis
Companies need to manage the key decisions about their people now if they are to rest their strategies and thrive after the pandemic has passed. These decisions fall into four categories: repurposing, engagement, learning, and lay-offs.
Leadership and Strategy
CEOWORLD Magazine:
Strategy and Sports: Metaphors for your strategic growth
Passion. Motivation. Rallying a diverse group of people around a common cause. Obsession with a shared goal.
There are strong overlaps between growth strategies and sports. Our organizational language is also filled with sports terms, from Monday morning quarterbacking to taking a punt. Metaphors matter, and for growth strategy some sporting lessons help in building an understanding of the needed alignment, adaptation, and coordination necessary for a successful growth strategy through uncertainty.
CEOWORLD Magazine:
Transformation Traps, and How Leaders Can Avoid Them
Uncertainty is the new certainty.
That our world will continue to change, and we need to be prepared to adapt and adjust, is the new normal. And as leaders, developing, executing, and innovating on strategy is fundamentally about becoming great at leading through uncertainty by facing it directly.
Fast Company:
Ten Common Leadership Traps and An Easy Road Map to Overcome Them
Successfully leading strategy and execution in a turbulent environment comes from facing uncertainty head-on. This typically follows a cycle as you guide your organization through a loop of stabilizing the business to survive the immediate turbulence, resetting the strategy as the situation changes, and then placing yourself back on a performance pathway to thrive in the future.
Strategy Execution
Smartbrief:
3 questions that will set you up for future strategic success
How did we do? Was our strategy successful this year?
It’s a critical question to ask at year’s end, especially as you gear up to kick off the next cycle, but shockingly few teams know the answer to that question.
Chief Executive:
The Illusion of Alignment: Why Your Strategy Execution is Failing
You may have communicated your must-win strategic goals ad nauseum, but without shared context—or the common understanding of what matters, why it matters and how the pieces fit together—your leadership team will be clueless.
Harvard Business Review:
Why Strategy Execution Unravels—and What to Do About It
Two-thirds to three-quarters of large organizations struggle with execution. And it’s no wonder: research reveals that several common beliefs about implementing strategy are just plain wrong. This article debunks five of the most pernicious myths.
London Business School:
Translating Strategy into Results
In this two-part blog, Rebecca Homkes, discusses how to frame our thinking of how to approach execution.
London Business School:
Five strategy execution myths exposed
Do you believe in these five strategy execution myths? Rebecca Homkes exposes the myths and examines the realities.
Forbes:
How The Fight For Independence Could Be The Death Of Your Business
Business history is replete with examples of companies that had it all: the hard assets, the skills, the strong market positions – and yet still lost their way.
Role of the Chief Strategy Officer
Harvard Business Review:
Why strategy chiefs succeed or fail
Why is it that some companies have great heads of strategy who make an outstanding contribution to their companies while others don’t? To answer this question, we evaluated 55 heads of strategy, and looked more closely at 11 who were particularly successful and 10 who were at the other end of the spectrum.
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