I have had a number of great lunches over the past week or so as I have been “in” from the road. Each of them a great chance to catch up, and to share learnings and (re)learnings with each other. Yesterday’s was no exception, especially as we chatted about gardening as part of the conversation. Friends might well be surprised to hear that I was involved in a conversation about gardening; it’s not high on my list of things to be doing! That said, I do know and appreciate how profoundly and deeply the connection is to the soil for many of us.

And I was reminded of the community gardens springing up around downtown Vancouver. In fact, one of my favorites, is at the corner of Davie and Robson, right next to St Paul’s Hospital. The average price of a house in Vancouver is about $1 million dollars. Imagine the property value of a corner lot in downtown Vancouver. At that corner, there used to be a little strip mall and a gas station. And the owners, (the Nuns who actually own St Paul’s Hospital), decided that there was more value in creating growing space on that corner, than creating space for yet another building.

This has got me thinking that, even though as leaders in business we are often placing value on economic growth (and some thinkers would say that is the only value we should focus on), what are the other ‘growths’ we need to be paying attention to? What space do we need to create in our organizations and lives to honour these other ‘growths’? In short, is your garden limited to a particular kind of ‘capital’ plant, or are others possible and even honoured?

I wonder…