What a Bushel of Apples Can Tell You About Your Team

I grew up in Dormont, a borough next to Pittsburgh, a city that built its name on steel. When I was in grade school, my then-bachelor uncle would drive my mom, my grandmother, and me on fall evenings to Connellsville, a small town southeast of the city. A gravel lot there was set up each season so farmers could sell what they had grown. Along with Seckel pears, squash of every variety, root vegetables, and much else, there were apples.

My grandmother inspected the apple bushels under whatever light was left as dusk faded into evening. She was a school cafeteria cook, and she and the farmer negotiated politely and quickly. I knew nothing about local economies then, but I believed that both of them, having lived through the Great Depression, could sense a fair price.

Bushels and baskets of Staymans, Winesaps, McIntoshes, Empires, and other varieties went into the spacious trunk of my uncle's car. It was an Oldsmobile or a Pontiac, and I can no longer say which. Between trips from the farmers' flatbed trucks to the trunk, I sampled as much homemade cider as Grandma allowed, and now and then there was a candy apple.

What I Didn't Notice

I thought those evenings were an outing. I did not see that they were also how my grandmother planned the week, or that I was making memories I would keep. The smell of fall still lingers, along with what I'm sure were thoughts of the winter ahead.

What I remember most is her eagerness and the care she took inspecting what she was about to buy. She was friendly at the lot, and I suspect that came naturally to someone who spent her days working alongside others in a kitchen.

I think about that kind of attention when I work with leaders. It is easy to skip the careful looking before a hire, a reorganization, or a new plan. We can be so eager to act that we overlook what is already in front of us.

Blending

There are more than 7,000 kinds of apples in the world, and about 2,500 of them are grown in the United States. Pennsylvania, where I grew up, is one of the six largest apple-producing states. Only about 100 kinds are grown commercially in the country, which means most never reach a store shelf.

A narrow choice has its reasons. A few reliable varieties store well, ship well, and taste the way customers expect. Teams face a similar tradeoff. People who think alike may agree quickly and be easy to predict, but they can also miss what someone with a different perspective would have noticed.

Grandma did not buy just one kind. She knew which apples were best for baking and which were best for cooking, and she blended them for the taste she wanted. The right combination mattered more than any single variety.

Of course, differences do not always combine easily. Leaders who value them must also make room for the friction they create.

What Takes Time

In Grandma's kitchen, apples were cored, chopped, diced, mashed, pureed, and sliced. Some went into lunch bags and snacks. Others, joined by a few ingredients, became breads, cakes, crisps, jellies, muffins, pies, sauces, and strudels.

The work often stretched over days, from cold storage to canning, while work and family competed for her attention.

Organizational change usually takes longer than people plan, and it asks for time from people who already have little to spare. The work of helping people develop does not become more effective because we insist it happen faster.

Except for the seeds, every part of the apple was eaten, and what wasn't used was typically composted. I don't recall any waste. Grandma seemed appreciative of every apple. I'm sure more than a few seeds were tried on the kitchen windowsill above the sink, where I learned that even a seedling needed attention to sprout.

What Held It Together

Apples have long been associated with teachers and good health. The familiar saying "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" reminds us how a small, repeated habit can come to stand for something larger.

Teams build habits too. A daily stand-up or a weekly huddle can give people a dependable place to raise problems early and learn how one another thinks. Over time, those practices become part of how people work together. Effective teams pay attention to their patterns and improve them as they go.

In business settings, love is usually described as affection or warmth, if it is discussed at all. In Grandma's kitchen, it looked more like attention.

Anyone in her presence got involved. Participation was welcome however it was offered. Much of the warmth came from preparing the apples together, from having something useful to do and enjoying the company along the way.

I have seen that same spirit in effective coaches, consultants, and leaders. A senior executive I worked with understood that each person and function brings value, and saw the work as allowing that value to flourish.

Grandma paid just as much attention to her own baking. Her pies sold well at church and ethnic Lithuanian markets, where she was an enviable and jealous competitor. Not to be outdone, she experimented with ingredients and amounts, adjusting the preparation, baking, and cooling times of her seasonal treats. She knew she could always do better.

I still think of those evenings, and of Grandma inspecting the bushels in whatever light was left. Most of what she showed me, she showed by paying attention.

If a teacher, a mentor, or a colleague once paid that kind of attention to you, this is a good week to tell them. A few sentences will do.

I'm confident my grandmother would have reminded me.

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