A little red book about source

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In this book, Stefan Merckelbach invites you to discover source: the inner wellspring from which every project and every initiative emerges. Step by step, he explores what it means to be a source person: recognising yourself as one, fully embracing that role, listening to your intuitions and clarifying your next steps. He also shows what happens when a source goes unrecognised or is not fully embraced, weakening both the project and the collective, and offers signposts for moving beyond these challenges.

A little red book about source is a work of practical wisdom about what sets us in motion, in our lives as well as in our organisations.

A source person is someone who receives an idea and takes the initiative—and the risks—to bring it into being. The source person’s central task is to clarify the next step in the project’s development. When support is needed, the source person invites others to join the initiative; they, in turn, become the source of specific parts of the project. This is how all our collectives come into being.

In life, we each take on several source roles: a manager becomes the source of a team, an employee the source of her work, a musician the source of his performance, an athlete the source of her physical condition. Wherever there is a project, there is a source.

This language of source originates with Peter John Koenig, a Swiss-British researcher and practitioner. He brought to light the unique role of the source person and articulated the principles that accompany it. His work, presented and further developed in this book, provides a valuable framework for understanding what enables every human initiative to emerge, grow and be passed on.

The global source initiates a project and, in doing so, creates a collective by inviting others to become specific sources. Like tributaries flowing into a river, each brings its own energy and values while contributing to the shared field.

The global source keeps the project’s direction and values alive, while the specific sources take responsibility for their own parts of the global field and strengthen the synergy within the collective.

Participatory Dynamics provides the framework for this collaboration to flourish. It balances equivalence and primacy, enabling the collective to grow with clarity, coherence and vitality.

The source principles shed light on the way we engage with our own initiatives. They bring greater clarity, strengthen our commitment and deepen our ability to invite others into their own source journeys. They inspire a more conscious way of leading, nurture our creative engagement, and give new meaning to our professional and personal relationships.

At its heart, A little red book about source is far more than a management book: it is a mirror that helps you recognise that you, too, are a source person. Whether you are launching a project, nurturing a collective or preparing a handover, this book illuminates the living dynamic that connects your freedom with your commitment. It invites you to inhabit your own source fully, giving your initiatives—large and small—the coherence and vitality they need to endure and to inspire.

Stefan Merckelbach is a philosopher-manager and the source of Ordinata, a Swiss company.

Since 2001, he has been accompanying leaders, teams and organisations in developing shared governance, collective intelligence and, since 2013, the source principles.

He is neither a trainer, nor a coach, nor a consultant—and yet most of his work consists precisely in those activities. With passion, he explores the human and organisational dynamics that enable projects to remain true to their original impulse and to develop coherently.

Vincent Delfosse, formerly Ordinata's corporate life biologist, is the source of the photographs in this book.

A naturalist, photographer, trainer and mountain leader based in French-speaking Switzerland, he combines his passion for nature with Nonviolent Communication and collective intelligence through expeditions, walks and initiatory journeys.

In A little red book about source, his black-and-white photographs offer moments of stillness, silence and beauty. They capture the promise of a source—its murmur, its light and its movement: flowing water, a stream growing into a river.

Peter John Koenig lives in Zurich. Since the 1980s, he has been developing the language of source and has been sharing it worldwide since 2000.

A visionary and dedicated researcher, he has devoted much of his life to exploring our relationship with money, showing how deeply personal—and how decisive—it is in shaping our choices, our relationships and our commitments.

He is also the founder of the worldwide Love in Business network, bringing together people who seek to connect business, consciousness and transformation. Today, he devotes himself to promoting peace in the world.

Karen Smith has magnificently translated the book from the French.