The Book

The Starfish and the Spider; The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations, Portfolio, by Penguin, London, 2006.

The Author

Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom

Speed RAP

Superficially, a spider and a starfish look similar - lots of arms and legs. Internally, their physiology is completely dissimilar. When we study how they’re dissimilar we see two discrete patterns. Biologically, the spider is centralized whereas the starfish is decentralized; they represent extremes on a continuum.

Brafman and Beckstrom have used this metaphor to create a new structural and management model - a Hybrid of centralized and decentralized.

The Internet, and digital technology, are the catalyst of this Fusion model and it’s the future of organizational management.

What will enable the Fusion model to grow your organization is respect and regard for the leader within each individual who collectively make up the organization.

Big Ideas

In this issue we uncover:
1 Is your organization a Spider or a Starfish? How would you know?
2 Spot the Starfish - using familar and topical examples
3 The Pendulum Swings - the swing between centralized and decentralized organizations with an example of the Music Industry
4 The Five Legs of a decentralized organization
5 Creating Fusion - How to create your own hybrid starfish
6 The CEO and the Catalyst - A new definition of leadership
7 Leaderful Rules - How to decentralize your organizations

Your Challenge

Fire Up! Fire needs a Catalyst; Fusion needs a Catalyst.

Bring online the Catalyst qualities you were born with. Get in touch with that part of you and bring it to the fore as you create Peer Leadership for yourself, your team and your organization. Pay attention to how centralized and controlling you are (and also the people around you).

Loosen the reins - become a catalyst.