The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom

Hardcover, 230pp
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Pub. Date: October 2006
ISBN-13: 9781591841432

B&N online price: $19.96
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SYNOPSIS

Understanding the amazing force that links some of today's most successful companies

If you cut off a spider's leg, it's crippled; if you cut off its head, it dies. But if you cut off a starfish's leg it grows a new one, and the old leg can grow into an entirely new starfish.

What's the hidden power behind the success of Wikipedia, craigslist and Skype? What do eBay and General Electric have in common with the abolitionist and women's rights movements? What fundamental choice put General Motors and Toyota on vastly different paths? How could winning a Supreme Court case be the biggest mistake MGM could have made?

After five years of groundbreaking research, Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom share some unexpected answers, gripping stories and a tapestry of unlikely connections. The Starfish and the Spider argues that organizations fall into two categories: traditional "spiders," which have a rigid hierarchy and top-down leadership, and revolutionary "starfish," which rely on the power of peer relationships.

The Starfish and the Spider explores what happens when starfish take on spiders (such as the music industry versus Napster, Kazaa, and the P2P services that followed). It reveals how established companies and institutions, from IBM to Intuit to the US government, are also learning how to incorporate starfish principles to achieve success. The book explores:

• How the Apaches fended off the powerful Spanish army for 200 years

• The power of a simple circle

• The importance of catalysts who have an uncanny ability to bring people together

• How the Internet has become a breeding ground for leaderless organizations

• How Alcoholics Anonymous has reached untold millions with only a shared ideology and without a leader

The Starfish and the Spider is the rare book that will change how you understand the world around you.

AUTHORS
Ori Brafman is a lifelong entrepreneur. His adventures include a wireless startup, health food advocacy group, and a network of CEOs working on public benefit projects, which he co- founded with Rod. He holds a BA in Peace and Conflict Studies from UC Berkeley and an MBA from Stanford Business School.

Rod A. Beckstrom is a serial start-up entrepreneur. He founded CATS Software Inc, which he took public and has helped start and build other high tech firms. Rod has served on various private and nonprofit boards. He holds a BA and MBA from Stanford and is a Fulbright Scholar.

SOUNDVIEW SUMMARY
This book is about what happens when there's no one in charge. It's about what happens when there's no hierarchy. You'd think there would be disorder, even chaos. But in many arenas, a lack of traditional leadership is giving rise to powerful groups that are turning industry and society upside down.

Following are the major principles of decentralization:

1) When attacked, a decentralized organization tends to become more open and decentralized.
2) It's easy to confuse starfish with spiders.
3) An open system doesn't have centralized intelligence; the intelligence is spread throughout the system.
4) Open systems can easily mutate.
5) The decentralized organization sneaks up on you.
6) As industries become decentralized, overall revenues decrease.
7) Put people into an open system and they'll automatically want to contribute.
8)When attacked, centralized organizations tend to become even more centralized.

A Sea of Starfish
There are many starfish-like operations - Skype, craigslist, Alcoholics Anonymous, even the Burning Man festival -all of which allow users to interact with each other directly without anybody telling anybody else what they can and cannot do.

In these systems, what matters most isn't the CEO but whether the leadership is trusting enough of members to leave them alone. From the user perspective, people don't notice or care whether they're interacting with a spider or with a starfish.

The Combo Special: The Hybrid Organization
Companies like eBay are neither a pure starfish nor a pure spider, but a hybrid organization. They combine the best of both worlds -- the bottom-up approach of decentralization and the structure, control, and resulting profit potential of centralization. eBay is a centralized company that decentralizes the customer experience.

Decentralized organizations appear at first glance to be messy and chaotic. But when we begin to appreciate their full potential, what initially looked like entropy turns out to be one of the most powerful forces the world has seen. Copyright © 2007 Soundview Executive Book Summaries

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Brafman and Beckstrom, a pair of Stanford M.B.A.s who have applied their business know-how to promoting peace and economic development through decentralized networking, offer a breezy and entertaining look at how decentralization is changing many organizations.

The title metaphor conveys the core concept: though a starfish and a spider have similar shapes, their internal structure is dramatically different-a decapitated spider inevitably dies, while a starfish can regenerate itself from a single amputated leg. In the same way, decentralized organizations, like the Internet, the Apache Indian tribe and Alcoholics Anonymous, are made up of many smaller units capable of operating, growing and multiplying independently of each other, making it very difficult for a rival force to control or defeat them.

Despite familiar examples -- eBay, Napster and the Toyota assembly line, for example - -there are fresh insights, such as the authors' three techniques for combating a decentralized competitor (drive change in your competitors' ideology, force them to become centralized or decentralize yourself). The authors also analyze one of today's most worrisome "starfish" organizations -- al-Qaeda -- though that group undermines the authors' point that the power of leaderless groups helps to demonstrate the essential goodness and trustworthiness of human beings. (Oct. 5) Copyright © 2006 Reed Business Information

WHAT PEOPLE HAVE SAID

"'The Starfish and the Spider' is a compelling and important book."
-Pierre Omidyar, CEO, Omidyar Network and Founder and Chairman, eBay Inc.

"'The Starfish and the Spider,' like 'Blink,' 'The Tipping Point' and 'The Wisdom of Crowds' before it, showed me a provocative new way to look at the world and at business. It's also fun to read!"
-Robin Wolaner, founder, Parenting Magazine and author, Naked in the Boardroom

"A fantastic read. Constantly weaving stories and connections. You'll never see the world the same way again."
-Nicholas J. Nicholas Jr., former Co-CEO, Time Warner

"A must-read. Starfish are changing the face of business and society. This page-turner is provocative and compelling."
-David Martin, CEO, Young Presidents' Organization

"'The Starfish and the Spider' provides a powerful prism for understanding the patterns and potential of self-organizing systems."
-Steve Jurvetson, Partner, Draper Fisher Jurvetson

"'The Starfish and the Spider' lifts the lid on a massive revolution in the making, a revolution certain to reshape every organization on the planet from bridge clubs to global governments. Brafman and Beckstrom elegantly describe what is afoot and offer a wealth of insights that will be invaluable to anyone starting something new-or rescuing something old-amidst this vast shift."
-Paul Saffo, Director, Institute for the Future

"'The Starfish and the Spider' is great reading. [It has] not only stimulated my thinking, but as a result of the reading, I proposed ten action points for my own organization."
-Professor Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum