We have a highly seasonal business where our leadership team is completely consumed during our busiest periods. Can we pause or adjust our quarterly session cadence during our peak months?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

The short answer is no, you cannot pause or skip your quarterly sessions. The ninety-day pulse of the system is a sacred boundary. In seasonal businesses, the temptation to skip a quarterly meeting because everyone is working eighty-hour weeks is incredibly strong. However, that is exactly when you need the alignment and discipline the most. If you skip a session, you are stretching your execution cycle to six months. In a fast-moving business, six months without a recalibration is an eternity, and it guarantees that your strategic goals will fall behind. What we can do is adjust the specific timing of the session by a week or two to avoid your absolute peak days, or we can adjust the scope of your quarterly Rocks. During your busiest season, your priorities might focus entirely on operational execution, capacity management, and customer satisfaction, rather than long-term strategic projects. Your Rocks will reflect the reality of your seasonal workload, but the discipline of stepping out of the daily business for one day to evaluate performance and reset priorities remains absolute. Keeping this rhythm teaches your team that strategic alignment is a core operating discipline, not a luxury we only practice when things are quiet.