Summer may be the season for easy living—backyard barbecues, family vacations, laying on the beach with a good book. But for many of the best businesses, this slower time of year is the season of recharge: a moment to pause, to reflect and to reset priorities, operations, and culture so that teams emerge focused and energized for whatever lies ahead.

Think of it like halftime in sports. Players go hard until that buzzer sounds, then they retreat to the locker room to take a breather, look at how they played, get a pep talk, examine their strategy, and adjust as needed.

Companies and managers can create halftimes, too—planned breaks and reflection periods to think through and recalibrate operations and goals. They can come in summer, at the year's midpoint, or whenever the industry tends to slow down. The volatile economic realities we all face are evidence that the plans we make at the beginning of each year—or quarter or month—aren't necessarily going to carry us all the way to the end.