The Starfish and the Spider
The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
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The Starfish and the Spider
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Narrated by:
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Sean Pratt
About this listen
If you cut off a spider's leg, it's crippled; if you cut off its head, it dies. But if you cut off a starfish's leg, it grows a new one, and the old leg can grow into an entirely new starfish.
What's the hidden power behind the success of Wikipedia, craigslist, and Skype? What do eBay and General Electric have in common with the abolitionist and women's rights movements? What fundamental choice put General Motors and Toyota on vastly different paths? How could winning a Supreme Court case be the biggest mistake MGM could have made?
After five years of ground-breaking research, Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom share some unexpected answers, gripping stories, and a tapestry of unlikely connections. The Starfish and the Spider argues that organizations fall into two categories: traditional "spiders", which have a rigid hierarchy and top-down leadership, and revolutionary "starfish", which rely on the power of peer relationships.
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 U.S. government, are also learning how to incorporate starfish principles to achieve success. This audiobook explores:
- How the Apaches fended off 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 untold millions with only a shared ideology and without a leader
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What listeners say about The Starfish and the Spider
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Barry Murphy
- 29-01-20
Informative and interesting
From a normal deck jockey point of view I did find the topic very interesting, it gave clear explations and very good insights.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ed
- 29-09-24
Easy listen that was interesting & thought provoking
Really interesting ideas and explanations of the changes happening around us. This may not standard leadership material, but perhaps it should be
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- joonsang
- 19-11-18
Cool but bias exploration of decentralisation
very prescient but a bit biased some interesting ideas about decentralised. worth listening to but not reading
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 13-04-19
Offers a different perspective
This book is quite fascinating, especially for those who are obsessed with leadership and culture in companies and organisations. The author offers a rather different perspective on how different organisations and teams function. He looks at organisations in the dimension of centralisation, and proposes that organisations lie somewhere on the centralised-decentralised spectrum. He uses the analogy of starfish for the de-centralised, and spider as the centralised ones. He talks about de-centralised organisations in depth, giving several examples and illustrating the attributes they have. He also discusses strategies in combatting de-centralised organisations. Finally, he talks about hybrid organisations which lie in the centre of the spectrum, and how each industry has a sweet spot on the spectrum at any time. Thus, the challenge for any organisation is to identify that sweet spot of how much to be centralised or de-centralised in order to prosper to the maximum potential.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- kirsty
- 03-02-20
good book on running a decentralised business
decent examples of each business principle highlighted and performer as a clear voice. would read again
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
- Francine
- 28-03-10
A MUST read
An outstanding book that gives some great insight into decentralised organisations. The authors give you some great examples of how this works in some businesses today.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Miles
- 24-07-15
Open your mind to a new type of leadership
Would you listen to The Starfish and the Spider again? Why?
Yes, great stories and a wonderful metaphor of how a non-led organisation can change the world...
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Starfish and the Spider?
Cut of the spider's head it dies... cut the starfish in two... you get two starfishes
What does Sean Pratt bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
Yes, very well read
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 08-05-18
Barely anything beyond review content
Simple principles easily found in reviews on Amazon or blog posts on the matter, rammed home repetitively across just 4 or 5 examples. If you have no idea of the meaning of decentralisation it might be interesting, if you have any basic background you won’t find anything new.
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