The Starfish and the Spider

The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations is a 2006 book by Ori Brafman (author of the 2010 book Click: The Magic of Instant Connections ISBN ) and Rod Beckstrom is an exploration of the implications of the recent rise of decentralized organizations such as Grokster and YouTube. The book contrasts them to centralized organizations, such as Encyclopædia Britannica, using compendia of knowledge as examples. The spider and starfish analogy refers to the contrasting biological nature of the respective organisms, starfish having a decentralized neural structure permitting regeneration.

In addition to giving historical examples of decentralized organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous and the Apaches and analyzing their nature in contrast to centralized organizations, the book considers conflict between centralized and decentralized organizations, including the "If you can't beat them, join them" solution of creating hybrid organizations such as Citizendium. A chapter towards the end of the book explores the concept of the "sweet spot", the optimal mix of decentralized and centralized attributes.

The book identifies a set of people the authors call "catalysts", who tend to be skilled at creating decentralized organizations. The authors list several abilities and behaviors (called "The Catalyst's Tools") that "catalysts" have in common, including:

This book has some similarities to books like The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell, as both identify certain sets of people who are important to change in a society or an organization, and try to define the attributes that people belonging to these sets have in common. The theoretical base draws richly from complexity writers in management, such as Ralph Stacey, Margaret Wheatley, Dee Hock, Doug Griffin, Patricia Shaw, John Holland, and Robert Axelrod, among others. The book provides an original and accessible way to see these principles in action.

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