Rod Beckstrom

The Starfish and the Spider

1. IDEA 1

   Leaderless organisations can be powerful

   Brafman and Beckstrom argue that decentralised organisations, with no single leader, can be surprisingly resilient. They compare such groups to starfish, which can regrow lost limbs, and centralised groups to spiders, which die without their heads.

2. IDEA 2

   Spiders die without heads

   The authors describe centralised organisations as spiders. Remove the head, and they collapse. In their account, such organisations depend on a leader who gives orders, so cutting off that leader can stop everything.

3. IDEA 3

   Starfish survive attacks

   The authors describe decentralised organisations as starfish. Cut off a part, and it may grow into a new one. In their account, there is no single head to remove, so attacks tend to spread the idea more widely instead of ending it.

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