Book Summary - By Stephen Goode


The Starfish and the Spider
—the unstoppable power of leaderless organizations
by Ori Brafman and Rod A Beckstrom

If you want to know about YWAM, read this book.

This book is an excellent story about centralized, decentralized and hybrid organizations. If you want to kill a spider, cut off its head. You cannot cut off the head of a starfish as it does not have one. If cut off the leg of an starfish, it will grow another.......starfish. This shows how decentralized organizations have always been around and take after the way that our brain’s function. Once thought to operate in a hierarchy, latest research shows the opposite.

This book gives examples of the characteristics of decentralized organizations such as flexibility, shared power and Ambiguity and how the Internet has spawned a new generation of decentralized organizations. It is a fascinating book.

Some principles of decentralized organizations;
- when attacked, they become even more open and decentralized.
- it is easy to mistake starfish for spiders.
- an open system doesn’t have central intelligence, the intelligence is spread throughout the system.
- open systems can easily mutate.
-the decentralized organization sneaks up on you.
-as industries become decentralized, overall profits decrease.

They stand on 5 legs;
-Circles
-the Catalyst
-Ideology
-the pre-existing network
-the Champion

If you want to learn more about community, trust and openness in the 21st century, this is a must read. If you are Interested in how organizations like Al Qaeda can thrive with many in the world looking for them, read this book.

G. Stephen Goode
Bangkok, Thailand

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