Five books for a mid-year strategy reboot

The middle of the year is often when strategy really starts to show its impact. Some plans are working well, others are slowing down, and what felt clear back in January can start to feel a bit less certain by summer. For leaders, it’s a natural moment to pause, take stock, and adjust course where needed.

 

A mid-year reset isn’t about starting over. More often, it’s about tightening focus, removing what’s getting in the way, and making better decisions based on what the year so far has shown. It’s a chance to realign teams, revisit priorities, and ensure strategy is still connected to reality on the ground.

 

These books offer practical, real-world perspectives on innovation, execution, branding, and leadership. Together, they provide useful guidance for organisations looking to reset direction and finish the year stronger than they started.

 

 

Best read for: Unlocking practical innovation inside your organisation

 

Untapping Innovation

Sally Kemkers, Deirdre Walters, Suzanne Allers

£24.99, Practical Inspiration Publishing

 

Innovation has never been more challenging: 85% of consumer product launches fail. However, many organisations already have the ideas they need - they’re just not always being surfaced or developed effectively. Untapping Innovation focuses on how to change that.

 

The book offers a practical playbook for how businesses can create the right conditions for products and ideas to connect with consumers and succeed. Using real examples, the authors show how innovation can be cultivated throughout the business, not something set aside as a separate project.

 

For leaders, the message is simple: innovation doesn’t need to be overly complicated; it needs to uncover deep user insights, guide better decisions, and reduce costly rework. When the environment is right, it just becomes part of how teams work.

 

 

Best read for: Building momentum and focus in fast-moving environments

 

The Hustle Mindset

Reece Borg

£17.99, Rethink Press

 

For many founders and scaling businesses, the challenge isn’t starting - it’s sustaining momentum while making the right decisions under pressure. The Hustle Mindset is written for those operating in fast-moving, uncertain environments where focus and resilience matter as much as ambition.

 

The book offers practical guidance on how to prioritise effectively, manage uncertainty, and build the right team around you. It encourages leaders to grow in a steady, practical way, keeping energy and execution aligned with clear direction.

 

Rather than chasing every opportunity, it helps leaders focus on what genuinely drives progress and long-term value.

 

 

Best read for: Creating clarity and structure for better decision-making

 

The Standard Model for Business

Edward Rowe

£29.99, Rethink Press

 

When organisations grow, complexity tends to grow with them. Processes multiply, decision-making slows down, and alignment becomes harder to maintain. The Standard Model for Business looks at how to bring structure and clarity back into that environment.

 

The book introduces a practical framework for understanding how businesses operate and where performance can be improved. It focuses on making decision-making simpler and more consistent across teams, so strategy is easier to put into action.

 

For leaders, it’s a reminder that clarity allows strategy to scale.

 

 

Best read for: Aligning marketing with authenticity and trust

 

Authentic Marketing

Visha Kudhail

£29.99, Kogan Page

 

In a crowded market, attention alone isn’t enough. Trust, relevance, and consistency are becoming far more important than volume or visibility. Authentic Marketing explores how organisations can build stronger connections with audiences by focusing on authenticity over performance-driven noise.

 

Drawing on experience with global brands, the book brings together practical frameworks with real-world examples and creative thinking, showing how brands can balance data, AI, and personalisation with human creativity and emotional intelligence. It challenges leaders to think more carefully about how their organisation shows up and what it stands for, and how audience-first thinking can strengthen both performance and long-term loyalty.

 

For businesses reassessing strategy mid-year, it offers a useful lens for aligning marketing with long-term brand credibility.

 

 

Best read for: Strengthening leadership performance

 

Executive Eats

Adam Kingl and Jakub Radzikowski

£14.99, Practical Inspiration Publishing

 

Strategy is shaped in boardrooms, but it’s also influenced by how leaders think, perform, and recover. Unlike other cookbooks, Executive Eats takes an unconventional approach, exploring how cooking can be a powerful route to greater wellbeing and how the right diet can enhance workplace performance, including focus, clarity, energy, and creativity.

 

Drawing on research, the authors explain how food can enhance both physical and mental states, offering readers recipes designed to build a better working life and address the challenges they face day to day.

 

For leaders taking stock mid-year, it’s a reminder that good strategy goes beyond plans and requires sustained energy and performance to execute it well.

 

 

Resetting strategy with intent

 A mid-year strategy reboot doesn’t need to mean starting over. In most cases, it’s about refining direction, improving execution, and removing the barriers that slow progress.

 

The books in this list each offer a different angle - from innovation and structure to branding, leadership, and execution - but they share a common thread: helping organisations turn intention into action.

 

For leaders, the opportunity now is to take what the first half of the year has revealed and use it to move forward with more clarity, focus, and confidence.

 

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Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com and rifonov_Evgeniy