Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom published The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations recently.Rod is the Director of National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) at the Department of Homeland Security Center. I sleep better at night knowing that he has the insights in Starfish and is in a position of leadership in national security.
Here is how Ori Brafman describes in 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 [AQ is a starfish organization they explore], are also learning how to incorporate starfish principles to achieve success. And it will teach you:
- How the Apaches evaded 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 TK million members with only a shared ideology and without a leader
