Once upon a time there was a great famine in which people jealously hoarded whatever food they could find, hiding it even from their friends and neighbors. One day a wandering soldier came into a village and began asking questions as if he planned to stay for the night.

“There’s not a bite to eat in the whole province,” he was told. “Better keep moving on.”

“Oh, I have everything I need,” he said. “In fact, I was thinking of making some stone soup to share with all of you.” He pulled an iron cauldron from his wagon, filled it with water, and built a fire under it. Then, with great ceremony, he drew an ordinary-looking stone from a velvet bag and dropped it into the water.

By now, hearing the rumor of food, most of the villagers had come to the square or watched from their windows. As the soldier sniffed the “broth” and licked his lips in anticipation, hunger began to overcome the skepticism of the villagers.

“Ahh,” the soldier said to himself rather loudly, “I do like a tasty stone soup. Of course, stone soup with cabbage — that’s hard to beat.”

Soon a villager approached hesitantly, holding a cabbage he’d retrieved from its hiding place, and added it to the pot. “Capital!” cried the soldier. “You know, I once had stone soup with cabbage and a bit of salt beef as well, and it was fit for a king.”

The village butcher managed to find some salt beef . . . and so it went, through potatoes, onions, carrots, mushrooms, and so on, until there was indeed a delicious meal for all.

A much better telling of the story can be found here.

The moral of the story is that with everyone working together and contributing what they can, a greater good can be achieved. How then do you get people to contribute? What could be used as the equivalent of “stone soup” with your coworkers, your spouse, or your friends that would convince them to participate in your endeavor?

Much like the soldier, you can – usually with little effort – create something just compelling enough to get your audience personally involved. I recently accomplished this by creating a small website in which my coworkers could upload information to a reporting system they use. Prior to the website, they had to send me the information they wanted uploaded and that often meant they had to wait. Once I’d removed myself as a bottleneck, people started to think about what other bottlenecks this website could remove, “if only we could add…”. Now my little website is not so little, and I’ve gotten more support from my peers and from those in higher positions than I could have had I tried convincing them without first building something.

The number of ways to apply this strategy seems limitless. Use it to go on that vacation you can’t quite afford by getting your friends to come along and help pay; use it to tackle that home improvement project that your spouse isn’t into by making a few small improvements by yourself to inspire them; or use it to convince your boss that you have a good idea by showing her instead of telling.

As effective as this strategy can be, it can also backfire. Imagine if the the soldier in the story had brought out actual food instead of a rock to make soup with; the famished villagers, if they were honest, likely would have left him alone despite his need for “a little cabbage.” Or, if they were dishonest, they likely would have sought to steal his soup rather than contribute to it. I’ve overdeveloped more than a few ideas to the point that they were seen as not needing help, and I’ve even had a project or two taken away by upper management for “political” reasons (not at my current job, thankfully).

Have you ever used the Stone Soup strategy? Did it work? Please post your story in the comments.