what happened to stone soup?

i mention this story to people, they don't seem to know wtf i'm talking about. back when i was a kid this was one of my favorites. i guess i didnt' realize it was about community dynamics, team motivation, talent management and indeed the entire business process in general.

i don't question that there are some extremely extremely small business that can be started completely on one's own: A florist, a little cookie shop, and of course all manner of art stringers like photogs.

but a :real: enterprise, the kind that generates milestone innovations...this almost always requires more than one human brain. in fact the more the better. amusingly, it appears in many cases to matter little specifically which brains they are. human brains are very adaptable and can reconfigure themselves to accomodate a given task in nanoseconds flat. every single one of them has something so powerful inside, it should be enough for 1,000 innovations...and even the small glimpses that make it out are priceless if you pay attention.

so this is what your people bring to the soup. a little salt, a little celery...we don't need much and everyone's liking the smell of the soup. everyone knows for sure that they are going to eat, and this breeds a communal feeling of warmth and comfort. the team knows the soup is the base of their community. they watch over it, "rear" it for all intents and purposes.

as individuals, they may have only a bit of salt or celery (or, like me, only a stone from the riverbank).

but as a part of the collective, as a founding member of the Family of the Soup, they have each other and their increasingly delicious soup.

it's really beautiful actually. i don't know why i hadn't paid more attention to it before.