Soup: A Recipe to Nourish Your Team and Culture

Chapter 53. The Recipe Book

Three months later Nancy walked into Grandma's Soup House holding a stack of books. Over the past year, she had posted on a big bulletin board in her office all of the ideas Peter had written down on napkins. She had also posted her own thoughts and inspirations, as well as insights that came from Brenda and other employees. Eventually, her office was practically wallpapered with the ingredients, principles, and suggestions for creating great soup. One day she decided to take all the ingredients, all the strategies, and all the ideas implemented at Soup, Inc., and publish them in a recipe book—with Peter's help, of course. It was not to be a recipe book for making actual soup—but rather, it would be a recipe book for nourishing your team and culture.

She gave copies of the book to every employee at Soup, Inc., and planned to distribute them as well to every MBA program where she was a speaker. Her turnaround of Soup, Inc., had become legendary, and she was frequently invited to deliver keynote addresses at business conferences and universities detailing her recipe for success. Nancy welcomed the opportunity to discuss her company's turnaround and hoped that her story—and the recipe book—would help others overcome their own challenges and construct their own triumphs.

However, in every talk she gave and in her recipe book, Nancy shared a disclaimer that knowing the recipe and ingredients wouldn't guarantee success. Anyone could memorize the recipe and ingredients. ...