[7] Seed Collecting – How to capture and enable great ideas

Since moving the suburbs I set up a compost bin behind my garage. In addition to food scraps, I compost brown paper and even the decorative pumpkins at the end of the fall. Each spring, I empty the bin of mostly composted materials and bury it behind my patio for future use around the yard. The idea of composting is simple: by keeping organic waste separate from other trash, nature converts it into renewed and useful material for the next cycle of life.

Except that’s not the whole story.

The picture below shows the current state of my compost pile. Those pumpkin seeds from last fall have found their calling and have taken over. I hadn’t been getting rid of just waste but also the seeds of great potential. These seeds stay dormant until the optimal conditions for growth presented themselves, and boy, have they taken advantage!

The broader application is that we regularly discard great ideas and flashes of insight when there’s no immediate application. We also fail to realize that conditions for growth matter as much as the idea itself. Great ideas, like hearty seeds, are enduring but still need the right environment to thrive.

In a sense, seed collecting is a big part of what this blog is about. It’s about sifting through life experiences and fascinating books to distill the most salient learnings. Most concepts don’t have an immediate application, but it’s easy to see that they might down the road. The idea of this blog itself was a seed that sprouted during my paternity leave last year.

We should all have a seed collecting practice, both personally and professionally. Routinely catalog ideas you chose not to pursue, lessons learned from recent experience, and insights you read or hear about. Regularly review the list and consider if it might be the right time to “plant” one of them. It’s also crucial to share your ideas and learnings broadly to help those in your network. Not all of my seeds will sprout in my soil, but they might in yours, so I’m happy to share with anyone willing to try.

Finally, as leaders, we need to ensure we’re creating and maintaining optimal conditions for growth. Without inviting conditions that empower all levels of the organization, many ideas will stay dormant.