I especially like #3
Natalia
*THE STARFISH VS SPIDER APPROACH TO ORGANIZATION
<http://irevolution.wordpress.com/2010/01/09/starfish-spider-decentralization/>
*
*Patrick Meier, Irevolution *- "The Starfish and the Spider: The
Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations" by Ori Brafman and Rod
Beckstrom is still one of my favorite books on organizational theory and
complex systems.
The starfish represents decentralized "organizations" while the spider
describes hierarchical command-and-control structures. The Starfish and
the Spider is about "what happens when there's no one in charge. It's
about what happens when there's no hierarchy. You'd think there would be
disorder, even chaos. But in many arenas, a lack of traditional
leadership is giving rise to powerful groups that are turning industry
and society upside down." The book draws on a series of case studies
that illustrate 8 Principles of Decentralization:
1. When attacked, a decentralized organization tends to become even more
open and decentralized: Not only did the Apaches survive the Spanish
attacks, but amazingly, the attacks served to make them even stronger.
When the Spanish attacked them, the Apaches became even more
decentralized and even more difficult to conquer
2. It's easy to mistake starfish for spiders:
When we first encounter a collection of file-swapping teenagers, or a
native tribe in the Arizona desert, their power is easy to overlook. We
need an entirely different set of tools in order to understand them (36).
3. An open system doesn't have central intelligence; the intelligence is
spread throughout the system: It's not that open systems necessarily
make better systems. It's just that they're able to respond more quickly
because each member has access to knowledge and the ability to make
direct use of it.
4. Open systems can easily mutate: The Apaches did notand could
notplan ahead about how to deal with the European invaders, but once
the Spanish showed up, Apache society easily mutated. They went from
living in villages to being nomads. The decision didn't have to be
approved by headquarters.
5. The decentralized organization sneaks up on you: For a century, the
recording industry was owned by a handful of corporations, and then a
bunch of hackers altered the face of the industry. We'll see this
pattern repeat itself across different sectors and in different industries.
6. As industries become decentralized, overall profits decrease: The
combined revenues of the remaining four [music industry giants] were 25
percent less than they had been in 2001. Where did the revenues go? Not
to P2P players [Napster]. The revenue disappeared.
7. Put people into an open system and they'll automatically want to
contribute: People take great care in making the articles objective,
accurate, and easy to understand [on Wikipedia] .
8. When attacked, centralized organizations tend to become even more
centralized: As we saw in the case of the Apaches and the P2P players,
when attacked decentralized organizations become even more decentralized.
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