The Starfish and the Spider - the book

"The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations" by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Becktrom differentiates two types of organizations - the starfish and the spider. In nature, the spider has a head which is critical to the survival of the whole organism and the starfish which has no central decision-making organ, and can replicate itself if part of it is cut off. In the book, the spider is a traditional leader-driven, top-down organization. The starfish is a decentralized, leaderless organization.

In our society, spider organizations are more prominent, and the authors spent the bulk of the book giving examples of starfishes. While some were interesting (e.g. how Spanish invaders had difficulty conquering the decentralized Apache Indians), others were less interesting and repetetive.

Maybe because of my background in computer science and the prevalence of the internet, I felt many of the examples were obvious. Open-source software, Wikipedia, even the internet itself were given as examples. Fantastic examples. But the authors spent what I felt was too much effort trying to convince readers of that fact. I use Wikipedia, edit entries, and open-source software was a cool and new idea - back in college, when I first learned about it.

Although the book is touted as a business management book, it's definitely not a 'how-to'. More a way of thinking and something to be aware of. Towards the end of the book, the authors discuss 'hybrid' organizations which often combine centralized decision-making with some elements of decentralization. For example, eBay with its peer-to-peer feedback system and Amazon with its customer-reviews.

Overall, an interesting read which would be especially useful for someone who wants to take advantage of the internet in their business but doesn't know much about it.