Starfish Organizations
Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom have a book coming out in early October called The Starfish and the Spider. The book is about how decentralized organizational structures makes for more agile organizations:
‘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…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.’
Read a Starfish and Spider excerpt here.
The authors have an op-ed piece in the SF Chronicle about how to fight a war when the enemy is decentralized and spans nation-states. The short answer is that you need a more decentralized approach, but the op-ed is worth reading and thinking about how it can apply to your business.
Also, Ori has been so kind as to pass on a galley copy of the book, so I’ll be putting a review up here shortly.
September 20th, 2006 at 10:31 pm
[…] Leadership comes from different people depending on context, which is characteristic of democratic organizations and starfish organizations. We have a hierarchy here but it is not based on a managerial position but on competency. For instance Dave is our genius in System admin, Dan is the President but this is not a strong area for him but it is for Nathan. So Nathan and Dave have the key relationship in this field and the rest of us trust that they will do the right thing. […]