StoneSoup?

StoneSoup gets its name from an old story about a group of soldiers returning home from the Napoleonic Wars. Hungry and without means, they rely on their capability for collaborative work, and in the process, bring material and emotional satisfaction to themselves and others. The setting is a war-torn village, with its traumatized population, hoarding their resources: little bits of food, against some future need. What the narrator doesn’t tell us, but what we know from reality- is that hoarded, unrefrigerated food rots- and that in the end, through understandable dynamics of self-protection and fear, everyone involved is going to starve.

The soldiers act to bring the villagers hope. They tell a story about a delicious meal of meat, vegetables, and steaming broth, which all can share. It develops as a function of a central belief: in a magical stone, placed in a large cauldron, volunteered by a villager.

The soldiers’ implicit knowledge- probably gained in the foxholes through the work of soldiering- of teamwork is instrumental in mobilizing the villagers’ pooling of their hidden resources with the yield of thriving rather than starving.

The StoneSoup Project works in a similar way: though instead of a stone, we rely on managerial and psychological research and practice.