The Workplace Mirror: Are we expecting a harvest in every season?

Recently, I found myself thinking about fruit trees. More specifically, I began wondering what is happening in a fruit tree between harvests. From the outside, there may be no fruit to pick and nothing obvious to celebrate. Yet the absence of fruit does not mean nothing is happening. The tree may simply be in a different season, preparing, strengthening, conserving resources, and getting ready for what comes next. To the casual observer, it may appear less productive simply because the work of that season is not producing something we can immediately see.

That thought made me wonder how often organisations operate as though every season should be a harvest season. We naturally celebrate visible results: revenue increases, growth, completed projects, successful product launches, targets achieved and awards received. These accomplishments are easy to recognise because they are the organisational equivalent of fruit. Yet organisations also experience seasons when some of their most important work may not generate immediate, visible results.

Developing people is one example. Preparing someone for greater responsibility rarely produces dramatic results overnight. Strengthening systems can involve months of reviewing processes, documenting knowledge and fixing weaknesses that customers may never know existed. Repairing culture can require difficult conversations, rebuilding trust and changing behaviours long before an engagement score improves. Preparing future leaders may consume resources today while creating value that will not become visible until years later. These activities may not look like harvest activities, but perhaps they are harvest-enabling activities.

This raises an important leadership question: What happens when we demand fruit from a season designed for preparation? If employee development must demonstrate an immediate return, we may concentrate only on today’s performance rather than building tomorrow’s capability. If experimentation is expected to produce instant success, people may become reluctant to experiment at all. If efforts to repair culture must quickly improve a score, leaders may be tempted to address visible symptoms rather than the conditions that created them. Sometimes our obsession with harvesting can interfere with cultivation.

I wonder whether this is one of the reasons short-term thinking can become so costly. Organisations naturally need results, and leaders cannot ignore performance indefinitely. But there is a difference between expecting accountability and expecting every worthwhile investment to mature immediately.

Some outcomes require time. Trust requires consistency. Capability requires practice. Innovation often requires experimentation and failure. Leadership development requires exposure, reflection and experience. If we judge these investments too early, we may abandon the very work that could have produced our next season of growth.

Perhaps leadership wisdom involves recognising what the present season actually requires. There are times to harvest, but there are also times to plant, strengthen, repair, prepare and learn. One season should not automatically be judged by the measures appropriate to another. A period devoted to building systems may not produce the same visible results as a period of rapid expansion, but that does not make it less valuable. In fact, the strength of the next harvest may depend entirely on what happened during the season that appeared quiet.

This makes me wonder whether leaders sometimes need to ask a different question. Instead of always asking, “What are we producing?” perhaps we should occasionally ask, “What are we preparing for?” The first question focuses our attention on immediate output. The second forces us to think about capability, sustainability and the future. Both matter. The challenge is knowing which question the organisation needs us to ask now.

Not every season is meant to produce visible fruit. Some seasons are preparing the conditions that make future fruit possible. Perhaps leadership wisdom is not simply knowing how to increase the harvest. It is knowing what progress should look like in the season we are in.

The Workplace Mirror Reflection: If we measure every season by its harvest, we may unintentionally neglect the work that makes the next harvest possible. Leadership accountability still matters, but wisdom requires us to recognise what progress should look like in the season we are in.

l Karen James is a Strategic Leadership Advisor, author, speaker, and founder of The Workplace Mirror, where she helps leaders and organisations uncover blind spots, expand perspective, and strengthen organisational effectiveness. She is also the founder of The Wise Professional, helping individuals and organisations make wiser workplace decisions.

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