40+FAB Blog

Lessons from the stone soup

From the story of the stone soup I shared the last time, we can draw out some lessons.

One can create anticipation and get people, who would never have been in the same room, to come together and produce something great that will benefit everyone who was involved.

The one who is allowed to create anticipation could do so either from a noble motive or a selfish one. It is a noble motive when they enable everyone to serve for the good of all, and it is a selfish one when people are galvanised to purely serve the ambitions of the one who brought them together.

There is power in a noble vision and in people coming together to achieve more than an individual could. We should therefore never allow this truth to go on our back burner such that we are left labouring in our silo’s. When we do, we leave a gap which will be filled by the one making a stone soup, and they could either have a noble motive or a selfish one. Why leave yourself open to a 50-50 chance when you can have a 100% guaranteed by doing what you know is right?

Sometimes you need to create the placebo effect, by starting the soup with a stone, where people are not open minded and need a little unconventional encouragement to do what is needed.

Vision and leadership require you to be prepared with many types of tools to help people come together and get the right results.