Ops Term of the Month: Summer
Summer is a season. Treat it like one.
Not every organization experiences summer the same way. For some, it's the exhale after a fiscal year closes: a chance to slow down, look up, and plan for what's next. For others, especially in youth development and community programming, summer is the main event. The work doesn't slow down; it expands. And both of those realities are valid. What matters operationally isn't which kind of summer your organization has; it's whether you've been intentional about it.
Seasons don't just happen across a year. They happen across a week. Across a day.
I was recently at a program called Grow to Scale, hosted by She's Well Networked, designed for Black women small business owners scaling from $250,000 to $1 million businesses. And what struck me most was how much of the conversation wasn't about hustle or strategy. It was about rest, identity, and actualization. One of the frameworks that came up was thinking about our days and weeks the way athletes think about training:
Periods of active work
Periods of active recovery
Periods of full rest
These aren't competing priorities; they're a cycle. Each one makes the others more effective. Athletes know this. The training matters, but so does the recovery run, and so does the sleep. You don't get stronger during the workout. You get stronger during the rest that follows it. Organizations work the same way, even if we rarely talk about it in those terms.
The ideas don't come when you're heads down. They come when you step away.
The shower. The morning walk. The slow cup of coffee before the day starts. There's actual research behind this: sunlight, movement, and a change of scenery do something real for the brain. The insights that surface in those moments aren't lucky accidents. They're what clarity feels like when it finally has room to land. Building those moments into your rhythm isn't indulgent. It's strategic.
For me, summer is Slim.
This is Endeavor's sixth year in business, and it's also my sixth summer as a CEO taking at least six weeks away. Sometimes it's been four weeks, sometimes eight, but most of the time I take two months. People often ask what I'm planning to do. My answer is nothing. Because it's less about what I am doing and more about what I’m not doing. I'm untethering myself from email. I'm untethering myself from being beholden to work activities. I like to say it's a chance to walk down the street unencumbered.
So what is your summer? And more importantly, have you planned for it?
It doesn't have to be six weeks. It doesn't have to be summer. But somewhere in your year, there should be a season that looks different from the rest: slower, quieter, more spacious. A season where the work of imagining and restoring gets as much room as the work of executing. The key is that it doesn't happen by accident. It gets planned for, structured, and protected the same way any other priority does. When you Gantt chart your year (the sprints, the deadlines, the busy seasons, the deliverables), the breathing room belongs in that chart too. Not as filler between the real work. As a season in its own right. A plan that includes rest is a more honest plan. And probably a more sustainable one.
We shared this article in E.TBD’s newsletter. You can read the full issue here or subscribe here.