Stone Soup is an old folktale. I remember hearing the story well before I was in school. And I remember my brother and I begging our mom to let us try making stone soup!¹

For those not familiar with the story, here’s my short retelling. Then I’ll get to my point.

Stone Soup, A Retelling

Once upon a time, there were two travelers making their way through a poor part of the country. As the sun started to go down, the travelers came upon a village where they decided to stop for the night. They knocked on the door of a house to ask if the villagers might share some food. “Even if we had food, and I’m not saying we do, we wouldn’t share it with you! Haven’t you heard about the famine? Nobody here’s got food to spare!”

The travelers looked at each other, shrugged, and made camp. One traveler filled their soup pot with water and set it on the fire. The other carefully inspected the stones scattered around the village and on the road, even smelling some of them. Finally, he picked a stone and gently dropped it in the soup pot.

By this time, one of the villagers was suspicurious². Trying his best to look nonchalant, he walked down to the travelers’ camp. “What’s that?” he asked? “Why, it’s stone soup!” said one of the travelers. “It’s delicious, and filling, and,” here the second traveler paused to sniff the soup before continuing, “probably will be done fairly soon. If you’d like to join us, you’re welcome.” “Yes,” the first traveler smiled at the villager, “of course! Now, you’ll need to forgive us us because we don’t have any vegetables to add, and they do round out the flavor nicely. But to be sure, we wouldn’t invite you if it wouldn’t be delicious anyway.”

The villager was shocked that the travelers were willing to share their meal. “Now that you mention it, I could go check and see what I have. If I managed to find a potato, would that go well in the soup?” “Nothing quite brings out the flavor of stone soup like a potato!” exclaimed the second traveler. At that, the villager scampered off, returning a few minutes later with a potato.

Now, for the sake of time, I’ll cut this short. But the other villagers became suspicurious about what was going on. One by one, they made their way down to the camp, doing their best to look nonchalant. One by one, they heard about stone soup. One by one, they were invited to share the travelers’ meal. And one by one, they scampered back home to find an ingredient to help bring out the flavor of the stone soup.

Finally, the travelers ladled up bowls of soup for the villagers. “I haven’t seen a carrot in weeks!” one said, marveling at the contents of his bowl. “I didn’t know anyone had meat,” another said. “Stone soup is absolutely delicious,” said a third. They all agreed, as they all ate the best meal any of them had had in weeks. And the next morning, when the travelers departed, the whole town turned out to wave goodbye—and to see if there was any way they could keep helping each other.

The End!

My Point

My point, of course, is that minerals are essential to a balanced diet. Wait, no, that’s actually not it.

In the village³, before the travelers arrived, everyone had something nutritious stashed away. One had potatoes, another carrots, another meat.⁴ But nobody had a healthy, well-balanced meal.

Reactions to the story seem to fall into two broad camps. One says that the travelers mooched off the poor villagers. The villagers provided all the food, while the travelers were freeloaders and provided nothing of value. The second camp says that the travelers provided at least as much value as anyone else by catalyzing the villagers to share. Because of the travelers, the villagers gained.

That’s interesting to consider, and probably tells you something about your approach to life.

But that’s not my point either.

My point has to do with teamwork. Teams.

Each individual on a team has unique skills, knowledge, and other resources. Some people can write code. Some can write prose. Some know everyone. Some ask good questions. Some can fix cars. Some are experts on fluctuations of commodity prices.⁵ Some encourage. Some tell jokes. Some get the joking to stop so we can get work done. Some keep schedules. Some run hydraulic presses.⁶

The more skills team members bring out to share, the more effective the team will be. Just like the more ingredients the village brings out, the better the stone soup will be.

Working in teams isn’t about doing exactly what your job description says. Just because your title is “Software Engineer” doesn’t mean you can’t review—or write—website copy. Just because your title is “Bank Teller” doesn’t mean you can’t design a fraud protection protocol. Just because your title is “Pizza Delivery Driver” doesn’t mean you can’t mop the floor.

The villagers in the story hoarded their food because they were afraid of what might happen if they shared. That’s something that, I believe, is common in the workplace. I would faciliate, but I’m afraid I won’t do a good job or that I won’t get my widgets delivered on time. I would volunteer for the party planning committee, but I’m afraid people will make fun of my ideas. I would try writing TypeScript to help out on this project even though I normally write PHP, but I’m afraid learning the syntax and tooling won’t go well and I’ll feel like a bad programmer.

When folks are afraid to share their skills, it impacts the whole team or company.⁷ Not in good ways, either.

As managers or leaders, we can make that worse. We can demand that our folks “stay in their lane” and work within their job descriptions. Did an engineer whip up a graphic for a prototype? Tsk, tsk, that’s designer work! Did the receptionist put air in a regular customer’s tires? Tsk, tsk, that’s mechanic work! Did an individual contributor offer an idea for how to improve a company-wide process? Tsk, tsk, that’s leader work!

We can train our people to not share their skills with their colleagues. When they hide their skills, they feel disengaged from their work⁸, they don’t contribute as much to the company⁹, and they certainly don’t seize opportunities that present¹⁰.

We can train them that not only are their internal fears valid, but also that they’ll face external opposition if they try to share.

It’s one thing to expect (in the sense of guess, or predict) the village butcher to contribute meat to the soup. It’s another entirely to scold the village baker for showing up with a leg of lamb. “You foolish baker! You’re the baker! Why would you think we’d welcome meat from you? That’s the butcher’s job!”

It might be that the baker could produce marginally more utility for the village by baking bread. If you are the Village Deputy Mayor for Soup-Related Meal Community Contribution Coordination, it might even make sense for you to have a conversation with the baker about how next time might go.¹¹

Perhaps there is no wheat, no flour, so no bread. Would you exclude the baker from contributing and from feeling like a part of the community, like they had a share in what was made?

Or what if there is plenty of flour, but the baker had seen that no meat had been contributed, and knew based on years of training at Baking And Other Culinary Arts Academy that meat would really put the soup over the top flavor-wise, and the butcher happened to be out of good soup meat now?

Here’s my point: working in teams is a lot like Stone Soup. Everyone contributes what they can, out of what they have, as they think is best. Everyone can talk about what would be best to add next. Everyone, working together, will produce a much better results. But if everyone hoards what they have, whether out of fear or out of training, the team will just produce a big pot full of hot, slightly dirty water.

Maybe that’s what you want, maybe not.

Next time you think about how to make teams work, think about Stone Soup.

1. It was long enough ago that I have no actual recollection of whether we made it or how it turned out. I’m guessing we found a suitable stone and made it. I’m also fairly certain that if we did, it was delicious. Way better than the non-stone version of whatever recipe we used. [↩]
2. Obviously a mix of “suspicious” and “curious”. Probably best pronounced sus-pish-urious. [↩]
3. It takes a village! [↩]
4. What this says about the agriculture and economy of the area, I’m not sure. How is it that Potato Guy and Meat Guy didn’t realize what the others had, and set up some kind of barter system? How do you end up with a soup with all kinds of varied ingredients, but nobody has happened to notice what goes on in anybody else’s gardens, fields, or farms? [↩]
5. Grade A medium-kernel free-range organic granite prices typically jump around holidays, so be careful when timing your purchases. [↩]
6. I just distracted myself trying to figure out what kind of team would need all of these skills and resources. [↩]
7. It makes me think of various stories about oracles being asked “who’s the greatest military mind in history?”, and answering with “that random peasant who never got asked to command an army.” So much potential, so little of it realized. [↩]
8. Not talking in terms of engagement surveys, though it probably does show up there, or in job satisfaction surveys. If you’ve been trained that some part of you shouldn’t be brought to work, you’re going to disengage parts of yourself from work. Unfortunately, that leads to the dark opposite of Stone Soup: instead of one flash of good leading to more flashes of good, this leads to a smear of apathy leading to more smears of apathy. [↩]
9. Source: duh. While there might be times as a manager to focus a direct’s attention, it’s foolish to regularly face an employee saying “I see a problem, and I have skills that I would really like to contribute toward fixing that problem!” and respond with “No. Your contribution and enthusiasm are unwelcome. Stay in your lane. By the way, are you feeling like you’re appreciated at work?” [↩]
10. At least not without permission, preferably in writing, confirming they’re allowed just this once to scratch their nose. [↩]
11. Side note. Over the past decade or so, I’ve experienced several instances of people trying to plan out potlucks. For entirely petty reasons, that annoys me. If you wanted a main dish, two kinds of chips, a Jello-based side dish, a chocolate dessert, and an orange-flavored beverage, just hire a caterer. If you’re going to have a potluck, be willing to roll the dice. Someone might get home and decide to make potato salad instead of macaroni salad, and it’d be amazing—well, it would be if they didn’t feel locked in to the macaroni salad signup. Part of the fun of potlucks is seeing how things come together (or don’t!) and chatting about the food. That magic goes away with sign-ups and plans. [↩]