The Starfish and the Spider

The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations

By: Ori Brafman, Rod A. Beckstrom

Narrated by: René Ruiz

Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

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? How could winning a Supreme Court case be the biggest mistake MGM could have made?

After five years of ground-breaking research, Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom share some unexpected answers, gripping stories, and a tapestry of unlikely connections. 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.

The Starfish and the Spider explores what happens when starfish take on spiders (such as the music industry vs. Napster, Kazaa, and the P2P services that followed). It reveals how established companies and institutions, from IBM to Intuit to the US government, are also learning how to incorporate starfish principles to achieve success. The book explores:

• How the Apaches fended off the powerful Spanish army for 200 years
• The power of a simple circle
• The importance of catalysts who have an uncanny ability to bring people together
• How the Internet has become a breeding ground for leaderless organizations
• How Alcoholics Anonymous has reached untold millions with only a shared ideology and without a leader

The Starfish and the Spider is the rare book that will change how you understand the world around you.

©2006 Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom (P)2019 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“The Starfish and the Spider, like Blink, The Tipping Point, and The Wisdom of Crowds before it, showed me a provocative new way to look at the world and at business. It's also fun to read!” (Robin Wolaner, founder, Parenting Magazine and author, Naked in the Boardroom)

“The Starfish and the Spider is great reading. [It has] not only stimulated my thinking, but as a result of the reading, I proposed ten action points for my own organization." (Professor Klaus Schwab, executive chairman, World Economic Forum)

“The Starfish and the Spider lifts the lid on a massive revolution in the making, a revolution certain to reshape every organization on the planet from bridge clubs to global governments. Brafman and Beckstrom elegantly describe what is afoot and offer a wealth of insights that will be invaluable to anyone starting something new - or rescuing something old - amidst this vast shift.” (Paul Saffo, director, Institute for the Future)

Makes a bit too much of it

The book compares organizations with a leader to a spider (squash the spider and it's dead) and decentralized organizations to starfish (cut off a starfish arm and it will grow back). Certainly there are some advantages. When an organization is under legal or military assault, the organization not being dependent on a single leader is a good principle. And of course, even an organization with a single defined leader should strive to establish itself so it could continue forward if that one person is indisposed.
But I feel the authors tend to take this idea and extrapolate too far, maintaining that leaderless organizations are better than organizations in every situation, in every way. It doesn't really explain how to make this work or what the disadvantages are or exactly how one works better than the other in the different examples they cite.