Starfish Organizations
Saturday, September 16th, 2006Ori 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.