Review: The Starfish and the Spider

Title: The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
Author: Ori Brafman, Rod A. Beckstrom
Category: Nonfiction
Rating: 2.5/5
Summary: This book argues that decentralized "starfish" organizations are more powerful than more traditional top-down, hierarchical "spider" organizations.

Review: Mildly interesting. It's been compared to The Tipping Point, but I didn't have any big "aha" moments like I did with The Tipping Point. They gave lots of examples of successful decentralized organizations. And they did try to summarize the qualities those successful groups had. But that part was pretty short—I wanted more of that. I didn't get a lot out of the book that I feel like I can apply in real life. Whereas The Tipping Point helped me to start making connections about how to create tipping points for things I care about. If you're looking for practical advice on how to encourage a decentralized community feel in an organization, this book doesn't have much to offer.