The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
Ori Brafman, Rod A. Beckstrom
Language: English
Pages: 240
ISBN: 1591841836
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
If you cut off a spider?s head, it dies; 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?
Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom have discovered some unexpected answers, gripping stories, and a tapestry of unlikely connections. The Starfish and the Spider explores what happens when starfish take on spiders and 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.
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around than fly off like Mary Poppins. Although Sharp didn't leave the abolitionist movement, he most definitely gave circles their freedom. He wasn't interested in creating an empire under his control; he was focused on sparking a movement to end slavery. It was in letting go that Sharp enabled abolitionist circles to proliferate. LEG 3: Ideology What makes members join a circle? Why spend the time and make the effort to participate? As we've seen, there usually isn't much money to be made in
his time on the road. He meets with CEOs around the world and operates as a smooth and polished catalyst. He's always on the lookout for a champion, someone who can run with the ball. Like Deborah Alvarez-Rodriguez of THE STARFISH AND THE SPIDER Goodwill, David is full of new ideas. He's a master at pitching the big idea, getting someone interested and bought in. Though full of ideas, David is also a great listener. He realizes how important it is to understand what people truly want. He'll
industry. Unlike the litigious record labels, however, Sun and IBM have found innovative ways to ride the decentralized wave. IBM saw that Linux—the open-source operating system that rivals Microsoft Windows—was gaining traction. Instead of competing with the decentralized market entrants, IBM supported them. It deployed six hundred engineers whose sole job was to contribute to Linux, and it actively supported the development of Apache and Fire-fox, the open-source browser that competes with
Want to download a song? Sure, why not. Want to create a piece of software? Go for it. Want to write an article for Wikipedia? Be our guest. Want to create a Web site featuring your cat? Go right ahead. Want to drive a twenty-foot giraffe car? That's great! Starfish systems are wonderful incubators for creative, destructive, innovative, or crazy ideas. Anything goes. Good ideas will attract more people, and in a circle they'll execute the plan. Institute order and rigid structure, and while you
appears to have a bunch of legs coming out of a central body. But that's where the similarities end. See, the starfish is Tom Nevins's kind of animal—it's decentralized. THE SPIDER, THE STARFISH, AND THE PRESIDENT OF THE INTERNET With a spider, what you see is pretty much what you get. A body's a body, a head's a head, and a leg's a leg. But starfish are very different. The starfish doesn't have a head. Its central body isn't even in charge. In fact, the major organs are replicated throughout
