Survive, Reset, Thrive: Leading Breakthrough Growth Strategy in Volatile Times
Rebecca Homkes
KoganPage (February 2024)

“Culture isn’t just one aspect of the game. It is the game.” Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

To what does the title of this book refer? Rebecca Homkes wrote this book for business leaders (with or without a title) to help as many of them as possible “to embrace ambiguity, proactively stabilize their businesses to survive any market condition, and then reset when they needed to clear the path to thriving.”

In this context I am again reminded of a prediction that Alvin Toffler makes in Future Shock (1970): “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

Homkes: “I wrote this book because I see first hand how we can get it wrong about change. Our default is to frame uncertainty as unequivocally bad, something to be managed down. DRT shows what happens when we see uncertainty as a set of possibilities for growth. [NOTE: The Chinese character for ‘crisis’ has two meanings: peril and opportunity.] This new frame of what is possible is exciting but not easy. Most books aren’t honest enough about how hard it is to reset. Yes, it takes a mindset switch — and it also takes hard work, emotional resilience, and discipline as you must keep assessing and adjusting along the way.”

In his classic work Leading Change, James O’Toole suggests that the strongest resistance to change tends to be cultural in nature, the result of what he so aptly characterizes as “the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom.”

Homkes: makes brilliant use of several reader-friendly devices, notably dozens of “Figures” throughout the narrative and a “Summary and Next Steps” section at the end of most chapters. For example:

o Figure 1.3 Recap of Figure (Page 11)
o Figure 2.3 Don’t ask “What could happen?” Ask “What will make us? What could break us?” (24)
o Figure 3.1 The 4 Cs [Cash, Cost, Customer, and Communication] 3.1 (36)
o Figure 4.4 Prioritize by significance to the industry and criticality to your strategic choices  (68)

o Figure 5.2 Assessing your right to win: Do you have a VRIN [Valuable, Rare, Inimitable, and Non-substitutable] advantage? (87)
o Figure 6.1 Identifying your ideal customer profile (102)
o Figure 7.2 and 7.3 Destination as a finish line, and, Direction as a finish line (130)
o Figure 8.1 MWB [Must-Win Battle] setting process flow diagram (154)

o Figure 9.1 Inside the black box of execution (184)
o Figure 10.1 Beliefs testing tracker: Trend, Key beliefs, Status, and  Comments (197)
o Figure 11.2 The leadership trinity (230)
o Figure 12.2 Strategy stances and Honda Motor Company (245)

Whatever their size and nature may be, all organizations need effective leadership at all levels and in all areas of the given enterprise. That is especially true now. I cannot recall a prior time when the business world  was more ambiguous, more uncertain, more complex, and more ambiguous than it is today.

I commend Rebecca Homkes on the quality of the information, insights, and counsel that she provides in Survive, Reset, Thrive. However, the value of that material will ultimately be determined by how well you absorb and digest it and then, with your associates, how well you and they apply it in order to achieve the given objectives. Change is a continuous process, not a specific destination. Also keep in mind this observation by Peter Drucker: “There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all.”

* * *

In school, college, and then graduate school, I learned more and learned it faster when I discussed material in a group with 3-5 others taking the same course. I also recorded key Q&As on 3×5 file cards (based on course material, whatever the subject) with a Q on one side and the A on the other, held together by a thick rubber band. I carried them with me and reviewed the content whenever I had a few minutes to spare.

Here are two other suggestions to keep in mind while reading Survive, Reset, Thrive: Highlight key passages, and,  perhaps in a lined notebook kept near at hand, record your comments, questions, action steps (preferably with specific deadlines), page references, and lessons you have learned as well as your responses to key points posed within the narrative. Also record your responses to specific questions posed, especially at the conclusion of chapters.

These two simple tactics — highlighting and documenting — will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent reviews of key material later.