The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations

In this book, the authors address the differences between starfish and spider organizations. A spider has a tiny head and eight legs coming out of a central body. If you chop off the spider's head, it dies. A centralized organization has a clear leader who's in charge. Get rid of the leader and you paralyze the organization. A decentralized organization is a starfish. The starfish doesn't have a head. The major organs are replicated throughout each and every arm. In 2005, MGM sued Grokster because it allowed the sharing of music and movies over the Internet. Five years earlier, Napster was sued for allowing file sharing. The recording industry went after the people who were swapping the music as well. But this did not prevent the problem of music piracy. The harder they fought, the stronger the opposition grew. The best explanation for these events comes from a book by Tom Nevins about the Apaches. Spanish explorer Cortes fought the Aztec, who had a central government, and took their gold; killed their leader; and starved the city's inhabitants. Two years later the entire Aztec empire had collapsed. The same fate befell the Incas. But they lost against the Apaches. It was all about the way the Apaches were organized as a society. The Apaches distributed political power and had very little centralization. They persevered because they were decentralized. A centralized organization has a clear leader who's in charge. In a decentralized system there's no clear leader and no hierarchy. The power is distributed among all the people and across geographic regions. Instead of a chief, the Apaches had a Nant'an--a spiritual and cultural leader who led by example. As soon as the Spaniards killed a Nant'an, a new one would emerge. No one person was essential to the overall well-being of Apache society. When attacked, a decentralized organization tends to become even more open and decentralized. Every time the labels sue a Napster, a new player comes onto the scene that's even more decentralized and more difficult to battle. The harder you fight a decentralized opponent, the stronger it gets. Some examples of starfish organizations: (a) The Internet is a decentralized starfish network where no one is in charge. Spider organizations have structures, hierarchies, and a president. (b) At Alcoholics Anonymous, no one is in charge. If you were to ask how many members or chapters it has, there'd be no way to tell because it is an open system. An open system doesn't have centralized intelligence; the intelligence is spread throughout the system. Spider organizations weave their webs over long periods of time, but the starfish can take over an entire industry in the blink of an eye. (c) Craigslist attracts three billion page views a month. The way craigslist runs is that people who use it post, and if they find something inappropriate they flag it for approval. So the people who use the site run it. It allows users to interact with each other directly without a

This is an exceptional book addressing how decentralized organizations flourish. It is easy to read, yet stimulates exploratory thinking beyond its words. The suggestions in the Starfish and the Spider can impact society on the grand scale from fighting terrorism worldwide to defeating alcoholism. As a university professor, I read many business books. This is one of the best. I have recommended it to my graduate students, and they have unanimously agreed it is great.

No matter how you identify yourself in the human ecosystem -- worker bee, sheriff, manager, capitalist, entrepreneur, politician, healer, parent, activist or consultant -- this book is going to turn on lights in your brain. It's that multi-layered. It's also that packed with the kind of simply brilliant insights that are totally familiar, and you wonder why you didn't remember that you knew that. The Starfish and the Spider is about the power of individuals coalescing in groups of common interest and goals. It is about people doing things because they are important and meaningful to them. And how, under these circumstances, hierarchical control just isn't necessary. Using an eclectic group of examples that range from the guerrilla tactics of the Apaches against the colonial Spanish army to the network of independent AA groups to a variety of Internet-driven modern companies, the book distills some clear principles about the structure, roles and ultimate "unstoppability" of healthy starfish organizations in surviving, growing and getting things done. Promoted as a business management book, this book has just as much value in many other realms. Specifically, it leads to interesting ideas in psychology, religion and spirituality, government, social activism, global diplomacy, and certainly no less, to individuals who are poised to become more active in their communities, local and global. The fundamental concepts are not new. The tribal system of collaboration and cooperation, based on trust and kinship, undoubtedly predates the emergence of power-based heirarchies. The effectiveness of grassroots movements is well known. The achievements of these organizational systems -- often against heirarchy-based organizations with massively more wealth and power -- are detailed throughout the book. However, the authors offer some new interpretations and suggestions about these laterally networked human systems can be used. To improve business performance in conventional, heirarchically organized firms. To achieve social change. And even to fight other laterally organized systems. The overwhelming messsage of the book is the goodness of people, their willingness to step up and help better a situation. The only "dark" spot is the section about Al Qaeda and the stresses it creates not only on foreign nations it targets for terrorism, but on its home communities. The discussion in that section about ways to weaken the incentives for hate-based groups and then a story about what one community did about its embedded terrorists are sobering and fuel for debate. Today, the ease of bringing together people and sharing information and plans is dramatically facilitated by the Internet and wireless telephones. That is also the message of this book. Starfish organizations are coalescing all around us, both in formal intent and casual happenstance. If the authors are correct about the goodness and inherent compassion in human nature, there has never been a time wh

I have a childhood memory of building a go-cart. Every kid in the neighborhood was involved. Who was in charge? Whoever had the right answer in the moment of the next right thing to do. Hands, hearts, minds worked together, one idea building on another. It was an emergent experience in every sense of the word. The go-cart was more beautiful and functional than any one of us could have built alone. Before beginning to read The Starfish and the Spider, recall your own memories of magical groups in self organizing action. Whether you are a teacher, community leader, business owner, NGO officer, or corporate executive, this is a book worth reading. This is a book about the power and magic of groups engaged in self-organizing, non-hierarchical projects. Using stories of business, politics, activism and common interest groups, the authors show how such groups coalesce, grow and effect change, often in the face of tremendous "conventional" opposition. Some of the examples include Wikipedia, eBay, Skype, Napster and P2P sharing, al Qaeda, and many open source and decentralized projects which are ... starfish like. From the book: "Starfish have an incredible quality to them. If you cut an arm off, most of these animals grow a new arm. And with some varieties, such as the Linckia, or long-armed starfish, the animal can replicate itself from just a single piece of an arm. ...They can achieve this magical regeneration because in reality, a starfish is a neural network - basically a network of cells. Instead of having a head like the spider, the starfish functions as a decentralized network..." For me, one message of this book is that this "new" form of leadership does not need to be learned. Rather, it is a matter of unlearning our cultural training that a hierarchical organization is required to accomplish anything of importance. Once you understand the dynamics that authors Ori Braufman and Rod Beckstrom identify, you will begin to notice starfish-like organizations springing forth in many remarkable places. The authors tell the story of Dave Garrison's (CEO of Netcom, 1995) attempt to engage French venture capitalists in investing in Netcom. Trying to understand his business model, the investors wanted to know, "Who is the President of the Internet?" "Who decides?" They could not grasp that the Internet had many contributors and no central leadership. It went against everything taught in the best business schools. Thus, the French investors declined to invest, and lost an incredible opportunity. There is no question that there are stresses within starfish organizations. A go-cart is a short-lived project; a new business is in it for the long term. The games can be intense and the tactical agreements fluid. But common interests and shared objectives enable people to undertake the initial creative act of letting go, and learning to trust each other. With that, the locus of power and control shifts, and the results challenge everything we have bee

Simply a great book. Brafman and Beckstrom make a very compelling case for decentralization in organizations, businesses, causes, and life. They contrast the spider (top-down management) with the starfish (which is essentially headless ... all its "legs" go in any direction it wants to ... but the starfish still moves and is effective). The book discusses the management techniques of wikipedia, craigslist, al Qaeda, the blogosphere, and more. Though these are first time authors, I found the book mimics the unique observations of someone like Malcolm Gladwell. Overall: the book packs a big impact ... especially given that it is short and I was able to read it in one cross-country trip. It will certainly changed the way we thought about managing our organization.