The Starfish And the Spider

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The Starfish And the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom is an exploration of the implications of the recent rise of decentralized organizations (see Decentralization) such as Wikipedia, Grokster, and YouTube. The book contrasts them to centralized organizations, such as Encyclopædia Britannica, using compendiums of knowledge as examples. The spider and starfish analogy refers to the contrasting biological nature of the respective organisms, starfish having a decentralized neural structure permitting regeneration.

In addition to giving historical examples of decentralized organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous and the Apaches and analyzing their nature in contrast to centralized organizations, the book considers conflict between centralized and decentralized organizations, including the "If you can't beat them, join them" solution of creating hybrid organizations such as Citizendium.[citation needed] A chapter towards the end of the book explores the concept of the "sweet spot", the optimal mix of decentralized and centralized attributes.

The book identifies a set of people the authors call "catalysts", who tend to be skilled at creating and maintaining decentralized organizations. The authors list several abilities and behaviors (called "The Catalyst's Tools") that "catalysts" have in common, including:

  1. Genuine interest in others.
  2. Numerous loose connections, rather than a small number of close connections.
  3. Skill at social mapping.
  4. Desire to help everyone they meet.
  5. The ability to help people help themselves by listening and understanding, rather than giving advice ("Meet people where they are").
  6. Emotional Intelligence.
  7. Trust in others and in the decentralized network.
  8. Inspiration (to others).
  9. Tolerance for ambiguity.
  10. A hands-off approach. Catalysts do not interfere with, or try to control the behavior of the contributing members of the decentralized organization.
  11. Ability to let go. After building up a decentralized organization, catalysts move on, rather than trying to take control.

This book has some similarities to books like The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell, as both identify certain sets of people who are important to change in a society or an organization, and try to define the attributes that people belonging to these sets have in common. The theoretical base draws richly from complexity writers in management, such as Ralph Stacey, Margaret Wheatley, Dee Hock, Doug Griffin, Patricia Shaw, John Holland, and Robert Axelrod among others. The book provides an original and accessible way to see these principles in action.

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