Thursday, January 06, 2011

The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations

The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations

by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom


Chapters One Through Five Summarized by Bill Bekkenhuis


Introduction

When researchers studied how the brain forms memories, rather than a top-down structure, they found "a mess." Memories triggered neuron activity in multiple areas of the brain without apparent rhyme or reason. To wipe out one's first memory of grandma, one cannot simply go and eliminate the so-called "grandma" cell. Memories, even individual memories, of grandma are distributed throughout the brain structure.

This book is the story of what happens in an organization "when no one's in charge."

Napster, al Qaeda, Craigslist and Wikipedia are just a few of the decentralized organizations to be examined in this book.


Chapter One: MGM's Mistake and the Apache Mystery

A college student invented a music-swapping protocol that allowed people to download music and share it with each other. Unfortunately for the music business, they were doing this without paying any royalties. They were, in effect, stealing the music. The music industry took them to court and won. Napster was destroyed. But then other groups started file-sharing and the music industry went after them and the music industry again took them to court time after time and won. The industry attacked those downloading the music as well as those who enabled the thefts. But despite winning case after case, the problem of music piracy increased. It was almost as if the more they were attacked, the stronger they became.

As the authors were investigating this, they came across Tom Nevins, a cultural anthropologist. Nevin described Cortez's victory over the Aztecs, in which he completely took over the vast Inca civilization in a period of about two years by taking over their capital city and killing (and replacing with there own puppet) Montezuma, the leader of the Aztecs. Pizarro accomplished the same feat with the Incas, again completely subjugating an ancient and vast civilization in about two years.

He then compared the experiences of the Aztecs and the Incas with the Apaches. The Apaches had no pyramids, highways or gold. The Spanish tried to turn them into farmers and while some took up that life, many resisted. The Apaches, unlike the Aztecs and the Incas, held off the Spanish for the next two centuries.

The difference, per Nevin, was that the Apaches were a decentralized society. They had no big chief, no headquarters, no hierarchy. Leaders who did emerge led by example rather than by any type of coercive power. In the Apache tribes they were the Nan'tan: spiritual and cultural leaders.

In this type of "open system," power and information and resources and decision-making are distributed throughout the elements of the tribe. It's not that there are no norms or sanctions, it is that such norms and sanctions are taught and enforced organically within the tribe rather than as a directive from "the top."

The Spanish found, as the music industry found, that when you attacked a decentralized organization you, in fact, made them stronger. The Spanish destroyed the Apache villages – the Apaches responded by developing a nomadic existence. The villages were simply not essential to the Apache way of life.

This leads to the first principle of decentralization: "when attacked, a decentralized organization tends to become more open and decentralized." (p. 21)

If one looks at the music industry "pirates," one sees a similar pattern.

Napster (which was broken by the legal system) gave way to even more decentralized players such as Kazaa (which was forced to take legal sanctuary somewhere in the South Pacific), Grokster, Napster II, and eDonkey with each one becoming more and more decentralized, becoming a tougher target to hit legally. The final and possibly ultimate level of decentralized music sharing is eMule – an ubiquitous program so obscure that no one even knows who wrote it.

An entity such as eMule is beyond the reach of any corporate lawyer. Who do you sue?



Chapter Two: The Starfish, the Spider and the President of the Internet

In 1995 Dave Garrison, CEO of Netcom (an early ISP) attempted to get backing from French investors. He hit a stonewall when he couldn't respond to their question, "who is the president of the internet?" (Exasperated, he finally told them he was.)

The problem with the French is they didn't understand the difference between a spider and a starfish.

This leads to the second principle of decentralized organizations: "it is easy to mistake starfish for spiders."

A spider is a centralized creature. Cut off it's head and you kill it.

A starfish is a very decentralized creature. Cut it in half and you'll end up with two starfish. Cut off its legs and each leg will become a starfish.

Another example is the Labor Day hurricane of 1935. Ed Sheeran attempted to evacuate his crew because he knew, based on his personal experience, that the storm was coming. But he had to clear everything through his Jacksonville, FL headquarters. The resulting "drag" on information-sharing and decision-making caused many of Sheeran's men to die.

This brings us to the third principle of decentralization: "an open system doesn't have central intelligence; the intelligence is spread throughout the system." (pp. 39 - 40)

Another decentralized organization is Alcoholics Anonymous. In Alcoholics Anonymous, no one is in charge. Yet everyone is in charge.

Decentralized organizations, unlike centralized organizations grow and adapt very quickly. So the fourth principle of decentralization is that "open systems can easily mutate." (p. 40)

The fifth principle of decentralization is "the decentralized organization sneaks up on you." (p. 41)

If you look at the music industry over the last 100+ years you see a transition from individual musicians, to recorded music, to small independent labels, to large labels and then – with the internet and file swapping – to more and more decentralized structures: from Starfish to Spider to Starfish.

Looking at this economically, the sixth principle of decentralization is [italics] as industries decentralize, overall profits decrease. [/italics] (p.45)

How do you tell if you're looking at a starfish or a spider? By asking these questions:

  1. "Is there a person in charge?" (p.46)

  2. "Are there headquarters?" (p.46)

  3. "If you thump it on the head, will it die?" (p.47)

  4. "Is there a clear division of roles?" (p.48)

  5. "If you take out a unit, is the organization harmed?" (p.48)

  6. "Are knowledge and power concentrated or distributed?" (p.46)

  7. "Is the organization flexible or rigid?" (p.50)

  8. "Can you count the employees or participants?" (p.50)

  9. "Are working groups funded by the organization or are they self-funding?" (p.51)

  10. "Do working groups communicate directly or through intermediaries?" (p.52)


Chapter Three: A Sea of Starfish

This chapter examines a number of successful decentralized organizations already out there including Skype, Craigslist, Apache, Wikipedia and the Burning Man festival. These all provide the data for the rest of the book.

But the immediate lesson from all these decentralized organizations is the seventh principle of decentralized organizations: " ...put people into an open system and they'll automatically want to contribute." (p.74)



Chapter Four: Standing on Five Legs

Granville Sharp was a musician and lawyer in the second half of the 18th century in England. He spent much of his life as an abolitionist and the decentralized movement to which he belonged demonstrated the five foundations of decentralized organizations:

  1. Circles (p. 88): Successful decentralized organizations have many circles of volunteers who work with each other in non-hierarchical ways

  2. The Catalyst (p. 91): Successful decentralized organizations usually have people who function as catalysts or facilitators or spiritual leaders rather than as top-down, authoritarian bosses.

  3. Ideology (p. 94): Successful decentralized organizations are defined by their ideologies: ideologies that are freely embraced by their participants

  4. The Pre-existing network (p. 96): Successful decentralized organizations often piggy-back off pre-existing networks. In Sharp's case, it was the Quakers. Today, the internet often fulfills that function.

  5. The Champion (p. 98): Successful decentralized organizations often have a "front man" who champions the cause to the public. This person balances off the more low-key, behind-the-scenes catalyst. With the English abolitionists, that champion became Thomas Clarkson and the political face of the movement was represented by William Wilburforce, a member of Parliament.


Chapter Five: The Hidden Power of the Catalyst

Catalysts generally work by letting go and trusting the community. They often work behind-the-scenes. They generally have some or all of the following tools:

  1. Genuine interest in others

  2. Loose connections with a wide circle of people

  3. Mapping – the ability to connect people

  4. A desire to help

  5. An ability to meet people where they are

  6. Emotional intelligence

  7. Trust

  8. Ability to inspire

  9. Tolerance for ambiguity

  10. A hands-off approach to leadership

  11. Receding – catalysts know when it's time to get themselves out of the way


END OF SUMMARY FOR CHAPTERS ONE THROUGH FIVE. THE REMAINING CHAPTERS DEAL WITH DEFEATING DECENTRALIZED ORGANIZATIONS, FINDING THE CORRECT AMOUNT OF DECENTRALIZATION AND THE HYBRID ORGANIZATION COMBINING CHARACTERISTICS OF BOTH.

That's not where my interests are at the moment, though I may return to the book later.

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