Hack:
Stone Soup Global Leadership - a new model of collaborative leadership to address today’s global challenges

Stone Soup Global Leadership is a new model of leadership that is more flexible, more facilitative and more transformational -- a new model that will empower individuals and organizations to collaborate for the common good.  By sharing key learnings from current successful Stone Soup Leaders and their organizations (JUCCCE, iScale, Blue Rose Compass, Brave New Talent, among others),  we can enable many more individuals and organizations to accelerate innovation around society’s greatest challenges.

The Stone Soup Global Leadership paradigm is based on the work of JUCCCE (The Joint US-China Collaboration on Clean Energy), a non-profit accelerating the greening of China through international collaboration. The Stone Soup initiative, currently being incubated within JUCCCE, is defining this paradigm, identifying role models and sharing experiences from an initial set of successful leaders.

Using real-life examples and case studies from successful social entrepreneurs, our goal is to:

• Outline key “Stone Soup” skills 21st century leaders need to operate across organizations, sectors and borders
• Leverage existing Stone Soup leaders’ experiences via video story-telling and training program development  
• Provide access to skill sets and tools via on-line content and in-person training sessions to engage and enable a new wave of collaborative global leadership.

In absence of centralized leadership for society's stakeholders, Stone Soup Global Leadership can help individuals to collaborate through persuasion for the common good. In comparison to traditional command-and-control models for global change initiatives, this "network for action" leadership model needs to be more flexible in structure, more facilitative in style, and faster in decision-making. This type of work uses results-oriented collaboration and rapid feedback to facilitate coordinated change in society, institutions, and policy.

This leadership model is named after the fable of Stone Soup which has many variations used around the world:

Once upon a time, there was a traveler who happened upon a small, poor village. She was tired and hungry from her travels, but none of the villagers were willing to give her bread to eat nor a place to rest. So she started a fire in the middle of the village and filled a pot with water. To the boiling water, she added a stone. Curious villagers asked her what strange concoction she was making. "Soup from an award-winning family recipe," she said, "and I’d be happy to share some with you when it’s done.” So the villager sat down and chatted, eagerly awaiting a bowl. After a taste, the traveler said, “It’s tasting good, but I think it’s missing some onion.” So the villager eagerly brought a leftover onion to add to the soup. One by one, curious villagers added bones, potatoes, beans and other ingredients. In the end, the village and the traveler shared a delicious meal together. A meal none of the villagers could have made alone was made possible because the traveler inspired everyone to work together for a common goal.

The paradigm identifies the key personality traits, foundational experiences and core competencies of an effective Stone Soup Leader.  The paradigm frames areas for training and developing a cohort of such leaders.   A key ingredient is the need for facilitation of stakeholders from multiple organizations, typically with different incentives for participating. The world needs more leaders who have the capability to mobilize a virtual group to create measurable change.