Leadership IS Cooking!

Once upon a time, in a tiny medieval village, a farmer spotted three soldiers on the edge of town.

Knowing what would likely happen next, he ran into the marketplace shouting a warning to his fellow villagers: “Quick, close the doors, lock the windows! There are three hungry soldiers coming, and they’ll take away all our food.”

The soldiers were in fact hungry. When they entered the village, they started knocking on doors, asking for something to eat. The first villager told them that his cupboards were bare. The second villager told them the same. The next door didn’t even open.

Finally, one of the starving soldiers had a brilliant thought, and proposed to everyone at the top of his voice, “I have an idea — let’s make stone soup!” With that, he knocked on yet another door. “Excuse me,” he said to the villager, “do you have a cauldron and some firewood? We would like to make some stone soup.”

The villager, thinking there’s no risk, said, “Soup from stones? This I’ve got to see. Sure, I’ll help.” So, she gave the soldiers a cauldron and some firewood while another villager fetched three rocks and some water.

As they brought the water to a boil in a pot with three large stones, the news spread quickly through the town, and the villagers began to gather. “Soup from stones,” they said. “This we have to see. I had no idea you could make soup from stones.”

“Sure can,” replied the soldiers.?

Eventually, tired of standing around, another villager asked, “Can I help?” “Perhaps,” says a soldier, “if you had a few potatoes to spare, that would make the stone soup even better.” The villager quickly fetched some potatoes and added them to the pot of simmering stones.

Another piped up with the same question, “How can I help?” “Well, a dozen carrots would sure make the soup even better.” The villager ran off and fetched some carrots. Soon other were adding poultry, barley, garlic, and leeks.?After a while one of the soldiers called out, “It’s done,” and shared the soup with everyone to taste and enjoy. The villagers were overheard saying, “Wow! Soup from stones! It tastes fantastic. I had no idea...”?

The power in this little story is its implications for an entrepreneur. Making Stone Soup is?the only way?you as an entrepreneur can succeed at creating something from nothing.

The key is understanding what are the stones in this soup? As you build your business, the stones are your passion, your labor, and your big bold idea. The contribution of the “villagers” represented in this story are the capital, resources, and intellectual support from your investors and strategic partners. Everyone who adds a small amount to your Stone Soup is helping to make your dream come true. Part of your job is to be willing to ask for what you think might be useful. And to be grateful at each turn.

This is how I built my company from the germ of an idea to a point where were doing work with some of the largest companies on the planet and had offices in four countries spanning the globe. Shortly after founding the company, I came to realize the dream itself wasn’t enough. In order to keep things moving I needed another ingredient that turned out to be the most important because what I, and then we, were “selling” was a service/product that was intangible – leadership development.

The most important ingredient when making Stone Soup is your passion. Passion is contagious and intoxicating. People?love?passion, they love being around people that are passionate, and they love to contribute to projects that are fueled by passion. But know this – you can’t fake it. Our BS detectors are great at spotting a lack of authenticity. Nobody “believes in” the carnival barker, the used car salesman, or the disingenuous politician.?

What is passion? The word itself is derived from the Greek páskhō and it means to experience a feeling of intense enthusiasm towards or compelling desire for someone or something. It’s a kind of passion that is born out of desire. In the words of Neville, “desire is the power imagination uses to fashion life about me as I fashion it within myself.” Desire is the fuel of passion.

What you want is what John Hagel, co-founder of Deloitte’s Center for the Edge, calls?the passion of the true believer. “In Silicon Valley we have many examples of the true believer,” says Hagel. “These are great entrepreneurs [who] are truly passionate about a very specific path and are notoriously not open to alternative views or approaches. Their passion is enduring and focused.”

Passionate people are deeply creative in seeking out and pulling in the resources they need to pursue their passion, but it goes farther than that. “People who pursue their passions inevitably create beacons that attract others who share their vision,” said Hagel. “Few of these beacons are consciously created; they are byproducts of pursuing one’s passion. Passionate people share their creations widely, leaving tracks for others to find them.”

As a leader and entrepreneur you’re constantly in the kitchen making Stone Soup. And, while the basic recipe is disarmingly simple – your passion, your big idea, and your hard work – the cooking is not easy. But if you approach the “cooking” as an experiment in creating emotional engagement, as something that unfolds in the fullness of time, you will almost certainly be rewarded with an amazing meal!

Leadership is the Art and Science of co-creating coordinated movement. Making Stone Soup is a great metaphor of this process. Discover what your leadership blindspot may be by taking a simple quiz. Get an instant report as well as suggestions for lessening the consequences caused by your blindspot. Go to https://bit.ly/3LrZtT1 to take your quiz.