business strategy

Book Review: The Starfish and the Spider

March 31, 2011 by Rosa Say

From the publisher:

The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom

If you cut off a spider’s head, it dies. But if you cut off a starfish’s leg, it grows a new one, and that leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. Traditional top-down organizations are like spiders, but now starfish organizations are changing the face of business and the world.

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 A. 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. 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.

My review:

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m a bit late to this, for The Starfish and the Spider was quite the darling of business book readers when it was published in 2006, and reading it now I can understand why. In the new Epilogue written for this edition, author Ori Brafman talks about “speaking starfish” saying, “it’s been exciting to see Starfish provide a language for people to describe their organizations,” something I can definitely understand and echo, for clear vocabulary and a strong language of intention is key in effectively communicating any business model. Besides the starfish (decentralized organizations) and spider (centralized, more tradition ones with heavy top level power players), Brafman and Beckstrom make the roles of catalyst and champion sound very appealing (in comparison to the CEO) in both types of organizations.

The authors strive to be objective, but I felt they gave short shrift to the downsides of decentralization, other than quick statements such as “decentralization brings out creativity, but it also creates variance.” Another: “Where did this revenue go? The revenues disappeared.” (Admittedly, there is too much champion and too little catalyst in me” so much for my own objectivity!) And perhaps they were doing so purposely, taking their cue from the catalysts they so obviously admire, who they say, have a “tolerance for ambiguity.”

I was relieved that they spoke of ideology as much as they did however, (i.e. and the importance of values), knowing how much this book has resonated in the business community. Their pitch is clear: The more successful organizations today are likely to be those who find their “sweet spot” between starfish and spider behaviors as “hybrid organizations” willing to change as the market demands.

The authors offer several case studies, making Starfish a very quick and interesting read; this book is terrific for a corporate book club when there’s a genuine desire to be open-minded, creative, and more innovative — the book is clearly a great conversation starter, and can inspire change. I can also see how it would foster more reading of related works, such as Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point, James Surowiecki’s Wisdom of Crowds, and Seth Godin’s Tribes. Much as I love playing in the world of business, the story which appealed to me most however, was about the Apache, and I found myself wanting to hear about more societal starfish movements; I’ll bet this book has a strong following in the Tea Party and newly emerging People’s Party movements.

View all my reviews on Goodreads.

Why Goodreads? They have become an App Smart choice for me in 2011 for I want to return to more book reading, and have set a goal to read at least 36 books this year (this was book 10 for me). Read more about the Goodreads mission here, and let’s connect there if you decide to try it too! You can also follow them on Twitter.

Above: An exposed fossil slab from the Sahara: Starfish have been around for a very long time. There are a lot of photos taken of starfish, but this one appealed to me as a reminder of how the authors speak of “Circles” as small, non-hierarchical groups which are independent and autonomous.

Archive Aloha: Books Come to You at Least Twice

Additional Book Notes:

The major principles of decentralization, as discussed by the authors: Italics is theirs, verbatim, commentary is mine.

When attacked, a decentralized organization tends to become even more open and decentralized. Example given: Story of the Apache, and what happened when a centralized body and coercive system (the Spanish) tried to take on an open system (the Apache.) In short, the Spanish lost.
It’s easy to mistake starfish for spiders. Example given: Story of the French needing a President of the Internet (though to me it was more a story about wanting to have, and see a spider despite all the evidence of having a starfish. With this one, the authors suggest we “ask the right questions:”
1~ Is there a person in charge? (spider)
2~ Are there headquarters? (spider)
3~ If you thump it on the head, will it die? (spider)
4~ Is there a clear division of roles? (spider)
5~ If you take out a unit, is the organization harmed? (spider)
6~ Are knowledge and power concentrated (spider) or distributed? (starfish)
7~ Is the organization flexible (starfish) or rigid? (spider)
8~ Can you count the employees or participants? (spider)
9~ Are working groups funded by the organization (spider), or are they self-funding? (starfish)
10~ Do working groups communicate directly (starfish) or through intermediaries? (spider)
An open system doesn’t have central intelligence; the intelligence is spread throughout the system. Culling this intelligence, and giving it the respect it’s due, is to me one of the greatest promises of more decentralization.
Open systems can easily mutate. Example given: The open system of Alcoholics Anonymous, bound only by the ideology of the twelve-step model.
The decentralized organization sneaks up on you. Because starfish mutate so quickly, their colonies can also grow with incredible speed; they can take over an entire industry in the blink of an eye.
As industries become decentralized, overall profits decrease. Introduce starfish into the equation and wave goodbye to high profits. Revenue is not a bad thing, and this quandary is what a hybrid organization must reconcile with.
Put people into an open system and they’ll automatically want to contribute. I found this to be a big assumption, but I like it if the data truly backs it up! Example given here (and it’s a good one) was Wikipedia.
When attacked, centralized organizations tend to become even more centralized. They hunker down. Example given: Research labs have gone underground to curb attacks by ALF activists (Animal Liberation Front).

“A decentralized organization stands on five legs. As with the starfish, it can lose a leg or two and still survive. But when you have all the legs working together, a decentralized organization can really take off.”

Circles. Today we are seeing how circles of people gain freedom and flexibility when they go virtual, but physical presence is still most powerful.
The Catalyst. A catalyst gets a decentralized organization going, and then cedes control to the members. There is a full chapter dedicated to the catalyst, to outline the tools of their trade:
1~ Genuine interest in others
2~ Loose connections, and a lot of them
3~ Intuition with mapping how others fit into social networks
4~ Desire to help
5~ Passion; the catalyst provides the drumbeat for a decentralized organization
6~ They meet people where they are
7~ Emotional intelligence
8~ Trust in people, and the flattened hierarchy which results, knowing you can’t control all outcomes
9~ Inspiration, inspiring others to work toward a goal which often doesn’t involve personal gain
10~ Tolerance for ambiguity; they often don’t know the details, leaving them to their champions
11~ The hands-off approach
12~ Receding. After catalysts map a network, make connections, build trust, and inspire people to act, they leave.
Ideology. It’s not just about community (lots of organizations offer community), not just about getting stuff for free, not just about freedom and trust. Ideology is the glue that holds decentralized organizations together.
The Preexisting Network. The Quakers would help Granville Sharp combat slavery in Great Britain.
The Champion. A champion is relentless in promoting a new idea. Granville Sharp needed the dedication and tenacity of his champion, Thomas Clarkson. Catalysts are charismatic, but champions take it to the next level; there’s nothing subtle about the champion.

The authors conclude with a set of Rules for the New World:

“Just as the telephone changed communications and technology changed warfare, the forces of decentralization have created a new set of rules… as we looked at these cases [of rapid change] we began seeing new patterns. Some have been surprising, and many have at first seemed counterintuitive.”

Rule 1: Diseconomies of Scale: “It can be better to be small.”
Rule 2: The Network Effect: “Often without spending a dime, starfish organizations create communities where each new member adds value to the larger network.
Rule 3: The Power of Chaos: “Starfish systems are wonderful incubators for creative, destructive, innovative, or crazy ideas. Anything goes. Good ideas will attract more people, and in a circle they’ll execute the plan.”
Rule 4: Knowledge at the Edge: “The best knowledge is often at the fringe of an organization.”
Rule 5: Everyone Wants to Contribute: “Not only do people have knowledge, they also have a fundamental desire to share it and to contribute.”
Rule 6: Beware the Hydra Response: “Take on a starfish and you’ll be in for a surprise… cut off the arm of a starfish, and it will grow a whole new body.”
Rule 7: Catalysts Rule: “Not because they run the show. Catalysts are important because they inspire people to action.”
Rule 8: The Values ARE the Organization: “Ideology is the fuel that drives the decentralized organization.”
Rule 9: Measure, Monitor, and Manage: “We can still measure the ambiguous and chaotic; but when measuring a decentralized network, it’s better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong.”
Rule 10: Flatten or Be Flattened: “Often, the best hope for survival if we can’t beat them is to join them… increasingly, companies must take the hybrid approach.”

And the final word:

“Yes, decentralized organizations appear at first glance to be messy and chaotic. But when we begin to appreciate their full potential, what initially looked like entropy turns out to be one of the most powerful forces the world has seen.”

What is the Learning we managers will Curate?

June 8, 2010 by Rosa Say

When would it be learning as a value, and when would it be learning as a strategic initiative?
When might learning be systemic, and when might it be irrelevant?

That last question makes me gasp for air in posing it at all, it really does, but I am trying to be open-minded about this” I am trying to learn something by gathering all the humility I can, and dismissing any assumptions I should dismiss in being a better coach for managers as I aspire to be. I’m hoping to get your help with this, fervently believing as I do, that we learn best from other people.

When I introduced our current theme of learning curation on June 1st, one of the things I wrote was this:

We all know of the benefits to learning, and I don’t intend for this theme to be one where we repeat them and preach to the choir: Let’s actually get learning done in a much more satisfying and useful way: Let’s become LEARNING CURATORS.

Now I am wondering if I was wrong, and if we do need to talk about our what and why before going any further. Shall we get a bit more specific?

The backstory

Here’s how these questions came up. I listened to a podcast which featured Jason Fried, founder of 37signals, answering questions collected from readers of his company blog, Signal vs. Noise. He thoroughly surprised me with his answer to a reader who asked what his team does to learn. His response was,

“Um I don’t know what everyone does. Some people go to conferences, other people just pay attention and observe things. I think that’s the best way to learn, to just stay focused on your industry and see what everyone else is doing, and pay attention to the right news sources, and learn stuff that way and just try it out. That’s the best way to learn anything, just try it. Experiment with stuff.”

(Here is the link to the full podcast: The quote about is just after the 15-minute mark.)

Now 37signals is no small-time company (you can learn more about them here), and so his answer really floored me, so much so that one of the first questions to pop into my head was, “Whoa” am I some kind of learning snob?”

So many assumptions, and so few facts

Our theme of learning curation makes some notable assumptions, and I admit to the bias that they are more than assumptions; I think of them as givens fully aware that they stem from my personal value system. They include our Managing with Aloha beliefs that

Learning is essential to any work culture for a vast array of reasons. Learning is a response to very healthy curiosities and fascinations, and it strengthens us as a method of coming up with answers or options.
Paramount within those reasons that learning is essential, is the self-development of everyone within any work culture, for if people grow, the capacity and abilities of the business will grow with them, so that all goals and objectives can be better achieved.
By “grow” we really mean continually improve within a constant striving for excellence. Innovation gives businesses an edge, for successful businesses cannot afford complacency or mediocrity.
If managers are charged with fostering the self-development of their people (and to the MWA way of thinking, they are) they have a very basic responsibility (Kuleana) with promoting learning.
Learning curation becomes a thoughtful strategy, aimed at optimal, well-timed selection from a myriad of possibilities. We choose as will best suit the individual learner, we choose as will best suit our team dynamic, and we choose as will best suit our organization’s mission and vision.

But again, I fully admit that these are my assumptions as the person who authored “Managing with Aloha” as an operational workplace system. So what do you think?

I’ll state the questions one more time. Our context: You are the Alaka‘i Manager accepting the MWA charge to curate best-possible learning for your team.

When would you curate learning as a value, and when would you curate learning as a strategic initiative?

When might learning be systemic, and when might it be irrelevant?

And perhaps a third question: Would you be inclined to leave it up to the individual, as Jason Fried does?

Read the story behind the book: Imagine having a Thought Kit
Get your copy from the Kindle Store, or on Smashwords.com

Revamping your Business Model? Enjoy the Study

April 13, 2010 by Rosa Say for Say “Alaka‘i”

Are you studying other business models? If you’re a business owner or manager, you should be.

Quick aside: If your answer to my title question is “no” uh-oh.

If you’re working for someone resting on their laurels, I strongly encourage you to start looking around at your options. Your boss should be a mentor for you, and they probably won’t challenge you if they aren’t challenging themselves.

“invention saturday” by western dave on Flickr

To not study other business models is to deny the learning (‘Ike loa) which can better shape your own model, helping you continually improve it. You will also enjoy the innovation triggers. If you feel you’re not coming up with enough new ideas on your own, this is the sure-fire way to get them in buckets.

Study Within, and Study Outside

A good approach is to devote your ongoing study in two different arenas, one within your industry, and one outside it. Then, take a look at two specific things: The constants they hang on to, and the change they embrace. From there, jump to a third: The change they lead with what they create.

For instance, as a workplace culture coach and the founder of Say Leadership Coaching, I’ll study other education and coaching models which impress me with their success (business formula/strategic initiative), their customer service (how they serve the market), and their value-alignment (how they go about achieving the first two, and where I will learn about their workplace culture.)

In recent years, I’ve studied the medical field as my choice outside my industry. When my book, Managing with Aloha was released, I noticed that in addition to managers in the hospitality industry I came from, my biggest audience were managers in education and in medicine. So it was a twofer for me: I could study their business model while simultaneously learning more about a customer I was seeking to better serve.

These days, I am very fascinated by the publishing industry, so much so that I think we’ll save that for another post; what a feast of learning, with opportunities accelerating daily. Even if you are not a writer and have no interest in ever publishing something, this is an industry to watch for those filters I mentioned earlier: In light of the ways the Indie Author movement, the Kindle, and now the iPad are promoting digital reading, what will happen to ‘old-school’ publishing? (There are many others involved, but in my view those 3 are the biggest movers and shakers.)

What will be the constants they hang on to successfully – and why?
What will be the change they embrace – and why?
Will they ever lead again, and if so, what have they created?

In publishing, the answers are getting very intriguing because they differ so much between business owner (publishers), two different customers (authors and readers), and the ultimate end-user served: the betterment of reading in a changing world.

What ‘business modeling’ approach are you using as a leader?

Will my ‘focus framework’ be useful to you, or can you suggest another framing for me and others reading?

My mana‘o [The Backstory of this posting]
Each Tuesday I write a leadership posting for Say “Alaka‘i” at Hawai‘i’s newspaper The Honolulu Advertiser. If this is the first you have caught sight of my Say “Alaka‘i” tagline, you can learn more on this Talking Story page: About Say “Alaka‘i”.

With this particular post I used a different title there, and added some Sense of Place questions [MWA Key 8]:
Hawai‘i Business Models: Which ones intrigue you?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Talking Story connections [Learning the 9 Keys of MWA]
If you have now Become an Alaka‘i Manager, how would you connect this post to your ongoing learning of MWA Key 6?

6. The ‘Ohana in Business:

The best form for your life can be the best form for your ‘Ohana in Business ® as well, where the goals of each will support the other. A business can be more than self-sustainable and profitable: It can thrive. We learn a value-based business model and organizational structure simultaneous to learning productivity practices which drive ROI (return on investment) and ROA (return on your attentions).

Talking Story Category Page: Key 6—The ‘Ohana in Business

Here are the results of another Talking Story archive search which may interest you: Constants and Change.

Choose your Values to Make your Decisions

April 1, 2010 by Rosa Say for Say “Alaka‘i”

2010 Update: I made the decision to bring Say “Alaka‘i” here to Talking Story in late May of 2010 when the Honolulu Advertiser, where the blog previously appeared, was merged with the Star Bulletin (Read more at Say “Alaka‘i” is Returning to the Mothership).

Therefore, the post appearing below is a copy of the one which had originally appeared there on April 1, 2010, so we will be able to reference it in the future when the original url it had been published on is no more…

Choose your Values to Make your Decisions

How much of your decision-making is aligned with the personal values you hold dear?

For instance, many of the decisions every business person must make, directly result in them choosing their customers.

Make no mistake about this: How you conduct your business illustrates your choices with choosing your customers pretty clearly for all to see — OR it illustrates the fact that you are not choosing, taking all comers, and leaving your business community entirely to chance!

Choose your Audience, and you Choose your Customers

This requires some bravery [Koa, the Hawaiian Value of Courage], but you get more courageous about it when you do so because you stand by your values. We’re in tough times requiring shifts in your business model. Important questions need to be asked:

1. Are you willing to give your customer what they want?

2. How about when their values have shifted away from yours?

These questions came to mind for me after thinking about two blog posts written for The Honolulu Advertiser by Dave Shapiro at Volcanic Ash. In the first one, Stripping anonymity from the ‘Net, Dave talks about the alarming lack of civility and Aloha in the comments received on The Honolulu Advertiser, comparing its result to what has been achieved by The Wall Street Journal:

The [WSJ] article points some possible ways forward and is a thought-provoking read, but what mainly caught my attention were the comments (click the tab under the headline.)

There were 82 of them and they were mostly thoughtful, civil and on point — in other words, the opposite of the nasty, ill-mannered, threatening and often racist reader comments you see attached to stories in most U.S. papers including the Advertiser.

Color me jealous.

The main difference is that the WSJ, one of the few newspapers that charges for its content, bills its comment section as a “community,” with community rules that require that real names, civility and focus on the subject.

I’ve taken up this effort to stimulate improvement at The Honolulu Advertiser before, and was unsuccessful: My coaching was politely declined. While I can’t speak for what happens at the ‘paper’ itself, I can tell you that each blogger is left to moderate their own blog. I’m not as tolerant as most, for I don’t feel I have to “swallow the Internet’s culture of anonymity” as Dave phrases it: I feel I have a bigger responsibility to the stewardship of my own blog culture. When in doubt, I delete.

We have a positive expectancy here at Say “Alaka‘i:” Being positive is Hō‘imi: Looking for it. I cannot tout Aloha in most of what I write about and not honor it. I don’t concern myself with someone’s “right to free speech” if their version of ‘free speech’ is offensive to the dignity of Alaka‘i Managers we seek to serve, or disrespects our Ho‘ohana Community of readers here in any way.

It’s similar to the stewardship all Alaka‘i Managers are charged with in any organization (their Kuleana with Mālama Kākou): Whether within a big organization or smaller company, every manager creates his or own culture within the bigger picture. The company may specify the values you should uphold, but you’re the one who ultimately does so, or neglects to do so. A healthy culture is your managing and leading with Aloha responsibility within your workplace, and for your customers.

It’s paid off for me here on this blog. We don’t have a problem with nasty commenters — not to be confused with the thoughtful people who ask questions and will disagree with me, for we both learn from that honest discourse, and you’ll see that happen in the comment conversations here. My bigger problem is spam, and it’s getting to the point where I’m tempted to turn off comments altogether, and just field emails.

But Dave makes a good point about how an audience can influence a blogger’s writing, and as a published writer (whether blogger, author, or journalist) we have to think about just how much we are allowing our reading audience to influence us: When is feedback healthy, and when is it inhibiting, or even damaging? How can it remain mutually beneficial, and result in that synergy which creates new alternatives?

The answer is found in your personal values, and your courage with turning away those who choose not to uphold them as you groom a community which functions as your extended team. A rising tide lifts all boats!

Are we sharing news, education, or entertainment?

Your audience may determine your final product much more than you realize: What do YOU think you deliver?

Again, the answer may depend on upholding our own values.

Initially on his blog, Dave’s second article triggering my reflections also appeared in the Opinion section Monday as a column (where online the comments can be particularly brutal… I’m not going to link there: This link goes to his blog edition): Local TV news lacks serious reporting. In this one he laments the quality of “local TV news becoming more and more about technical glitz, fancy sets and personality, personality, personality.”

“If TV newsrooms can’t find enough news to cover, it’s only because so much experience has been lost in the market consolidation that they don’t know where to look anymore.”

Must say that I agree with him and the squandering of precious airtime saddens me: I don’t find much quality reporting in our Hawai‘i television news broadcasting anymore that I would define as “the news” and usually skip watching altogether. I question if some of it can be called entertainment at all (just as I do NOT consider snarky comments to be entertaining in the least.) Are the people on our local TV news working hard? They probably are, but their end result no longer is of much interest to me as a viewer, and so judging by results alone, I am not part of the audience they are choosing to serve.

Nowadays, I learn more on Twitter and from other bloggers. Case in point when a former journalist responded to one of my tweets sharing Dave’s article, helping me understand the full picture. She tweeted,

“It’s one of the reasons I retired” @sayalakai those who were seasoned TV news journalists were/are being asked to take 40-50% pay cuts, and were replaced with cute and cheap young ‘uns.”

[I’ve combined two of her 140-conventioned tweets into one.]

As I responded in briefer form on Twitter, every business must adjust when they find their revenues are drying up. Unfortunately, their choices aren’t always wise ones — or the follow-up isn’t completely handled. I suspect there is much talent to be groomed in those “cute and cheap young ‘uns” and when leaders hire cheaper they have to provide the management coaching it takes so that talent is groomed, and their products and services don’t suffer as a result.

As for the “seasoned news journalists” who were released or who chose to leave, they can now chart a new course, and shift the wealth of their experience into new initiatives. They now have their chance to lead, true to their values, and not follow the older game plan which in the long run, was not mutually beneficial.

Dave ends by saying,

“With Honolulu’s two daily newspapers about to consolidate, we’ll soon see a similar drastic contraction in print reporting beyond what has already occurred from layoffs and buyouts, and the void in the amount of news and information on public affairs available to Hawai‘i citizens is going to be striking.”

I hope he’s wrong, but I fear he could be right. We who write, will all have to answer the questions I have posed, and will have to look for more positive results. It requires courage, yes, and for many it requires far simpler decisions about maintaining their livelihood in the short term. In the longer term, it requires smarter business models.

My view is this: If we stick with who we are, as determined by the personal values we hold dear, those crucial choices we make about viable business models, and about audience converting to chosen customer, will be choices we make about the resulting relationships which influence our lives. You CAN choose who you serve, knowing that being true to who you are is how, when all is said and done, you serve others best.

Choose your values when you make your decisions, and you’ll choose well.

Ho‘ohiki: My promise to you

Here at Say “Alaka‘i” we’ll continue to honor our values of Aloha and Alaka‘i first and foremost. The subject matter I write of will continue to rely on all the values of Managing with Aloha (listed here: Choose Values), for I realize that is why I was asked to blog here in the first place.

Thank you for reading, and for the support you continue to give me.

We Ho‘omau (persist, and persevere) with the Calls to Action and Current Ho‘ohana you see on the blog’s right sidebar:

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