Perspectives from Rebecca Homkes
Growth Opportunities in Uncertainty: The need to Survive, Reset, and Thrive
A once in a generation crisis. The week that will have a dramatic impact on markets for decades to come. A historic drop in consumer confidence. The Great Reset. The Great Recession. The Great Crisis. Everything changes after this.
Downturns are a great time to grow
When a system shock occurs, our instinct is to view this - and the uncertainty it creates - as negative. And as organizational leaders, negative is often equated to a possible downturn. The SRT playbook asks you to reframe how you view shocks and uncertainty: rather than inherently bad, instead see this environment as one with possible upsides. Opportunities are always available to those who are prepared, stabilized, and willing to undergo resets.
But what happens when a shock does produce a market downturn, or recession? They are often accompanied by a self-reinforcing cycle of fear, which leads to panic and premature freezing of spending and investing, which translates into the slowing of capital flows and the beginning of lay-offs, which leads to more panic. These effects can ripple through public and private markets into consumer sentiment, and the doom spiral begins. But macro downturns are not necessarily micro downturns.
If you are prepared - embrace these times, as downturns can be a great time to grow!
Nuance in, Noise Out
Great strategy lives at the intersection of tensions.
Leaders have always operated within these tensions, but the pressure of change on the system is heightened. Daily news cycles have become hourly, with orders and announcements constantly flooding the zone of information. Tariffs, tensions, taxes – it’s a turbulent news cycle, and it can feel difficult to keep up.
As leaders, how do we incorporate the right information that will impact our strategy while filtering out the distractions? Bringing nuance in and noise out to thrive during external uncertainty comes from building internal predictability.
The Cost of Chaos
Tariffs are on and off. Negotiations are happening and then not. Departments are cancelled, and then some are put back. Forecasts get doomier but contain multiple caveats. Stock markets tumble, and then slightly correct. Consumers report elevated uncertainty as cause for their pessimism. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell wrapped his press conference by noting ‘uncertainty is remarkably high.’
Markets hate bad news, but they hate uncertainty more.
We are constantly sling-shotting between headlines in a news cycle that has moved from 24/7 to incessant and inescapable, each hour something else may or may not matter.
Uncertainty alone is challenging enough — but when its intensity, frequency, and emotional implications all intensify simultaneously, we face something more disruptive: Chaos.
How to plan for 2025? Don't! You need to shift from planning to preparing
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.
What can leaders learn from this election? Three brief takeaways from the 2024 USA election
After months (ok years…..) of election discussion, we have an outcome in the US election. While much has been written about the emotive election and its outcome (which I cover elsewhere), I wanted to move slightly away from the policy and character debates and focus on three takeaways for organizational leaders.
And now, even more uncertainty: Reframing uncertainty as a growth mindset
When we entered 2024, uncertainty was at the top of every leadership agenda. Election uncertainty, regulatory uncertainty, AI uncertainty, geopolitical uncertainty. The list of trends with consequential unknowns is long and growing. And over the past few weeks, organizations based in or connected to the USA got another jolt of uncertainty as the 2024 Presidential elections shifted in course once more.
Reset means Change, and Change is hard
Don’t just Survive - Thrive! While a popular phrase, and one that we hear increasingly after market turbulence, it misses the critical point. Just surviving will not get you to Thrive. If you are not prepared to go through a Reset - and if you are not prepared to manage the changes that come along with it - you will likely not get to Thrive. The power is in the Reset.