Andrew L. Van Slaars

“Pick the low-hanging fruit”. It’s one of those buzzword-compliant phrases that gets thrown around in meetings, business books and articles. It might even seem like a good idea, just don’t follow this advice if you are actually picking fruit.

Experienced fruit pickers know that it’s best to pick the fruit growing high in the tree first. There are a couple reasons for this. Firstly, the fruit that’s high in the tree gets more exposure to the sun and tends to ripen faster than the low hanging fruit. Secondly, fruit pickers use bags to hold the fruit as they pick it. By starting at the top of the ladder, they don’t have a full bag until they get to the bottom of the ladder. The bag is the heaviest at the shortest part of the climb.

It’s pretty clear that it doesn’t really make sense to pick low-hanging fruit.

Andrew Business, Thoughts Business, buzz words