Welcome to the HBR Executive Agenda for January 8, 2026. In this issue: Regaining Momentum After a Holiday Break Recovering from a High-Profile Mistake How to Handle a Difficult Board Member Regaining Momentum After a Holiday Break There’s nothing efficient about the business cycle. We tend to work at warp speed at the end of the year to meet deadlines and close the books. And then we take a lengthy break. It can be a struggle to rev things up again when we return to work—a phenomenon many of us are experiencing this week. How do we get back on track quickly? For suggestions, I reached out to Tsedal Neeley, a Harvard Business School professor whose research focuses on workplace innovation. Neeley acknowledges that it can be hard to reenergize the team. While individuals might feel refreshed returning to work after a week or more off, organizations as a whole can lose focus. Her advice is to address the challenge head on, rather than just have everyone slide back into their jobs, business as usual. It’s an opportunity for leaders to remind themselves of their corporate priorities and to do a little cheerleading to reignite the passion. “A return to work after some time off is a great moment to reset and refocus and perhaps even move in some new directions,” says Neeley. Here’s her checklist for how senior executives can help their employees get their mojo back: Communicate. Town halls, in person or virtual, can be great tools for quickly rebuilding team dynamics and reminding employees that they’re part of a shared mission. Make sure your messaging focuses on the areas that are most critical now. If your company doesn’t have a tradition of town halls, an email or video from the CEO can serve the same purpose. Address the moment. These are tough times for many people. Employees are coping with economic, geopolitical, and technological uncertainty. While executives should probably avoid overt political messaging, they can acknowledge the difficulty that many of their colleagues are experiencing. Revisit strategic priorities. Use the New Year’s reset to interrogate whether you’re still on the right path. Double down on your most promising initiatives, and consider stopping work that no longer seems critical. Think about launching a high-profile project that can showcase the direction you want to highlight in 2026. Redefine your AI strategy. Neeley views this as particularly urgent. Whatever leadership thought about AI six months ago is probably out of date, so use this moment to reassess. In addition, senior executives should adopt a New Year’s resolution of ratcheting up their own AI knowledge and skills. “With AI, it’s not enough to sit back and delegate,” says Neeley. “Leaders need to be builders, to create prototypes, to have a sophisticated understanding of how these tools can help their business. This is one of the greatest technological revolutions of our time.” Neeley’s big takeaway is to be purposeful. Don’t expect employees to simply put the pieces back together themselves. Take actions that can help define the moment, reset priorities, and get your team back into its rhythm. Recovering from a High-Profile Mistake Mark your calendars for next Thursday, January 15 at 11 am ET, when we’ll hold our first HBR Executive Live of the new year—one you won’t want to miss. Do you remember the Sony hack back in 2014? Or the political Whitewater scandal of mid-1990s? Our guests sure do. Michael Lynton was the CEO of Sony at the time of the hack, and Joshua L. Steiner was a Clinton aide who was called to testify before Congress about his personal diary. These longtime friends recently wrote an upcoming book, From Mistakes to Meaning, that unpacks their difficult experiences, as well as the high-profile failures of other leaders. This frank discussion with two leaders willing to openly discuss their own mistakes will offer a glimpse at: What mistakes reveal about hidden aspects of our personalities The difference between mistakes and failure How we can break the patterns and identifiable causes that underlie many mistakes The judgment calls, habits, and mindsets that any leader can adopt to recover from a mistake and come back stronger Register now How to Handle a Difficult Board Member Senior leaders often have to navigate relationships with skeptical or even adversarial board members—and the way you react could potentially distort your decision making or even weaken your leadership authority. Our latest HBR Executive Playbook offers a practical framework for diagnosing where the perceived hostility stems from, as well as advice on how to engage with the difficult director inside and outside of the boardroom. Read more.
