Product Description

If you cut off a spider's head, it dies. But if you cut off a starfish's leg, it grows a new one, and that leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. Traditional top-down organizations are like spiders, but now starfish organizations are changing the face of business and the world.

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 ground-breaking research, Ori Brafman and Rod A. 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.

It reveals how established companies and institutions, from IBM to Intuit to the U.S. government, are also learning how to incorporate starfish principles to achieve success. Find out:

* 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #293585 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-03
• Formats: Audiobook, Unabridged
• Original language: English
• Binding: Audio CD

From 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 © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author
Ori Brafman is a lifelong entrepreneur. His adventures include a wireless start-up, a health-food advocacy group, and a network of CEOs working on public benefit projects, which he co-founded with Rod A. Beckstrom. He holds a BA in peace and conflict studies from the University of California at Berkeley and an MBA from StanfordBusinessSchool. He lives in San Francisco.
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 an MBA from Stanford and was a Fulbright Scholar. He lives in Palo Alto.

Customer Reviews

I hate to say it - not worth buying
I was quite eager to read "The Starfish and the Spider" given some great recommendations from others. However, once i purchased it and dove into it I was unfortunately disappointed. Despite having a high readability and ease (a credit to the work) I found the actual content of this book simplistic and repetitive.

The authors make some interesting connections between the nature of starfish, spiders, apache indians, some innovative dot.com companies but they generally dip into the same well's too often. Frequently citing the same handful of companies and metaphors, what begins as an insightful read becomes laborious.

In addition to the several references to Craigslist, Wikipedia and other companies, they invest a significant amount of writing about catalyst - a concept (though worded differently) is more aptly handled by Malcolm Gladwell in "The Tipping Point".

Ultimately, a 30 minute internet search regarding this book (and it's concepts) would provide an interested reader with exactly the same insights and material as they would purchasing the book. My advice: check it out from the library or google: starfish spider reviews.

Intreresting Book
This is a very interesting explanation for those of us who where born yesterday of what is happening in today's world of business.

"Welcome to the starfish revolution."

With regard to the title of Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom's book, it consists of two metaphors. The starfish represents the decentralized network, one that has no central command because it is a neural network, "basically a network of cells...get this: for the starfish to move, one of the arms must convince the other arms that it's a good idea to do so...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, ...the animal can replicate itself from a single piece of an arm." What about the spider? With its eight legs coming out of a centralized body, tiny head, and eight eyes, it represents a centralized network. "If you chop off the head, it dies. Maybe it could survive without a leg or two, and could possibly even stand to lose a couple of eyes, but it certainly could couldn't survive without its head."

Brafman and Beckstrom rigorously examine primarily centralized organizations (e.g. Aztecs and the Spanish army) and primarily decentralized organizations (e.g. the Spanish conquistadores and Apaches) noting the most significant differences that help to explain why - when in conflict -- the former are vulnerable to the latter. In fact, when attacked, a decentralized organization tends to become even more open and decentralized, can easily be mistaken for a centralized organization, has intelligence distributed throughout the entire system, its open systems can easily mutate, it can "easily sneak up on you [while] growing incredibly quickly."

Readers will welcome the research-driven approach that Brafman and Beckstrom in this volume, especially the fact that after identifying the "what" (i.e. the central issues to be addressed), they focus almost all of their attention on "why" and "how" leaderless organizations are unstoppable. They offer dozens of real-world examples of organizations that have - or compete with those that have - "a hidden force" and "the harder you fight this force, the stronger it gets. The more chaotic it seems, the more resilient it is. The more you [or anyone else] tries to control it, the more unpredictable it becomes." How can this be true? How can the absence of structure, leadership, and formal organization, once considered a weakness, become a major asset? It is for starfish organizations; however, for spider organizations, as already indicated, it is a liability. They die.

Others have their reasons for holding this book in such high regard. I have already indicated a few of my own and now briefly discuss two others. First, Brafman and Beckstrom make brilliant use of several reader-friendly devices that consolidate key points. For example, in Chapter 2, they highlight some with italics such as the six principles of decentralization. Others are listed and numbered in sequence such as the right questions to ask so as to avoid "the French investor pitfall" (i.e. becoming mired in a discussion of "who's in charge?"). Later, in Chapter 4, Brafman and Beckstrom explain that a decentralized organization "stands on five legs" and "when you have all the legs working together, ...you can really take off." Each of them is then discussed in detail, with an exemplar associated with each. For example, "The Champion" is Leg 5. An Englishman, Thomas Clarkson, was relentless in promoting the abolition of slavery. He was inherently hyperactive and operated well in nonhierarchical environments. He formed a circle and was the only member who worked on the issue full-time. "For the next sixty years, Clarkson dedicated his life to the movement." Nonetheless, he was soon forgotten. "Credit for the abolition of slavery [in 1833, years before its abolition in America] was attributed to William Wilberforce, a politician who was the movement's ally and spokesman in Parliament." As the example of Clarkson clearly demonstrates, the various leaders of a decentralized movement never bother to secure recognition for themselves. Most people credit the success of a movement to the wrong person, in this instance a politician rather than an evangelist, because they do not understand the power of a starfish organization.

My second reason has to do with what Brafman and Beckstrom have to say about what they call "catalysts" Perhaps to a greater extent than do "champions," they have a much greater importance to decentralized organizations. Why? Because, after initiating a circle and then fading away into the background, moving on, the catalyst transfers ownership and responsibility to each circle's members. Think of catalysts as being those who concentrate on establishing an organizational infrastructure (especially in terms of its ideology) and do so inconspicuously. Their satisfaction has nothing to do with attracting attention and gaining power or praise; rather, with helping strengthen and advance a cause in which they passionately believe. In this context, I am reminded of the insights that Jeanne Liedtka, Robert Rosen, and Robert Wiltbank share in The Catalyst. In Chapter 6, they explain how to lead pragmatically and idealistically at the same time when leading a growth initiative: First, identify the starting point and destination, then recruit an A team because it takes the best people who "are fully committed to a shared vision [and who will] consistently perform at the top of their game."

Moreover, as Brafman and Beckstrom correctly emphasize in the final chapter, it is critically important for everyone involved to be at the top of their game when an decentralized organization's organization's "sweet spot" has been identified. That is, "the point along the centralized-decentralized continuum that yields the best competitive advantage. In a way, finding the sweet spot is like Goldilocks eating the various bowls of porridge: this one is too hot, this one is too cold, but this one is just right." Brafman and Beckstrom also remind their reader that there are new rules to the game. For example, "diseconomies" suggest that it is sometimes better to be small when speed and flexibility are required. Also, starfish systems "are wonderful incubators for creative, destructive, innovative, or crazy ideas. Anything goes...where creativity is valuable [and highly valued], learning to accept chaos is a must." Some people are uncomfortable with ambiguity. For whatever reasons, they need (or at least are convinced they must have) sharply defined organizational order and "command and control" supervisors.

There are others, however, who ask Brafman and Beckstrom how they can be a better starfish in what seems to be a spiderlike organization. That is an excellent question. "We pointed them to the model of Mother Teresa, who created the Missionaries of Charity, a starfishlike organization that has spread out to 133 countries, while still working within the confines of an ancient, hierarchical organization." My guess is that, during the decades to come, the number of organizations that are primarily starfishlike will increase and the number of organizations that are primarily spiderlike will decrease. But none will be either a starfish or spider because there will always be a need for both order/structure and "chaos"/freedom.

Congratulations to Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom. Well-done!