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

by Ori Brafman

LEG 5: The Champion

A champion is relentless in promoting a new idea.

Greta Thunberg and the environment

Catalysts are charismatic, but champions take it to the next level.

What are the qualities that make catalysts essential to the very creation of a decentralized organization?

A catalyst’s most important relationships are based on trust and understanding.

When it starts becoming more about me and less about what’s happening, then we’re walking a dangerous path.” Deborah took a cue from Mary Poppins and left.

He’ll listen to you and find out what you’re excited about, then suggest ways to channel that energy into a project. He’ll guide you in putting your energy behind an effort, and only after you’re fully engaged, spending all of your free time on it, will you pause and ask, “Hey, how did I end up running this project?” By then, David’s job is done.

Not sure this is a good thing

The Catalyst’s Tools

Genuine Interest in Others To a catalyst, people are like walking novels. Information that most of us barely listen to is pure gold to someone like Auren.

Loose Connections Most of us have interesting personal conversations with a select group of our closest friends. But a catalyst is able to have these kinds of interactions with thousands—in fact, they thrive on meeting new people every day.

Mapping While you’re talking to Auren at a party, he won’t just be intrigued by your stories, he’ll also be mapping out how you fit into his social network.

Catalysts don’t just know more people; they also spend time thinking about how each person fits within their network.

Wanting to help is the fuel that drives a catalyst’s ability to connect people.

Emotional Intelligence If this is starting to sound like an episode of Dr. Phil, that’s because a catalyst depends heavily on emotional intelligence.

The catalyst weaves emotional connections into the very fabric of the organization.

Inspiration A true catalyst isn’t just a matchmaker but also an inspiration to others to work toward a goal that often doesn’t involve personal gain.

Being a catalyst requires a high tolerance for ambiguity. That’s because a decentralized organization is so fluid that someone who needs order and structure would quickly go mad.

Starfish organizations need ambiguity to survive.

If someone came in and tried to implement order and structure, they might be able to get better measurements and tracking, but they’d kill the starfish in the process.

Hands-Off Approach Perhaps the most difficult and counterintuitive element of being a catalys...

In a command-and-control environment, you can closely track what everyone is doing, but being watched and monitored makes employees less likely to take risks and innovate.

Catalysts depend on emotional intelligence; their job is to create personal relationships.

Catalysts are bound to rock the boat. They are much better at being agents of change than guardians of tradition.

Catalysts do well in situations that call for radical change and creative thinking.

From the very beginning, the FBI didn’t have a snowball’s chance. Agents did manage to infiltrate a few circles and even arrest and convict some activists. But those convicted just became heroes of the movement, inspiring even more activists to join the ALF.

Kind of why police wnt a centralized national crime org

when attacked, decentralized organizations become even more decentralized.

when attacked, centralized organizations tend to become even more centralized.

After the 9/11 attacks, the United States sought out the leader of al Qaeda, much as the French investors sought the president of the Internet.

As we’ve learned from every starfish organization we’ve seen thus far, take away the catalyst and the starfish organization will do just fine. If anything, it’ll be even stronger: if a catalyst is killed, the power shifts to the circles, making the organization that much more decentralized.

starfish are not invincible. Let’s look at some concrete strategies to combat a starfish invasion.

STRATEGY 1: Changing Ideology

With each loan that it gives, Jamii Bora is changing the ideology of the slums.

Jamii Bora changes the ideology from “Life is hopeless, so I might as well join a terrorist cell,” to “There is hope—I can make my life better.”

STRATEGY 2: Centralize Them (The Cow Approach)

Here’s what broke Apache society: the Americans gave the Nant’ans cattle. It was that simple. Once the Nant’ans had possession of a scarce resource—cows—their power shifted from symbolic to material. Where previously, the Nant’ans had led by example, now they could reward and punish tribe members by giving and withholding this resource.

Wonder if el salvador is trying something similar the shift to materialistic

With a more rigid power structure, the Apaches became similar to the Aztecs, and the Americans were able to control them.

Once people gain a right to property, be it cows or book royalties, they quickly seek out a centralized system to protect their interests.

It’s why we want our banks to be centralized. We want control, we want structure, we want reporting when it comes to our money.

If you really want to centralize an organization, hand property rights to the catalyst and tell him to distribute resources as he sees fit. With power over property rights, the catalyst turns into a CEO and circles become competitive.

This is why Wikipedia faces danger if it raises too much money. Ironically, the system works because it’s underfunded and because almost everyone is a volunteer.

STRATEGY 3: Decentralize Yourself (If You Can’t Beat ’Em . . . Join ’Em)

Change the ideology, and you alter the basic DNA of the organization.

Concentrate power and you create hierarchy—making the organization more centralized and easier to control.

The third strategy recognizes that decentralized organizations can be so resilient that it’s hard to af...

The best opponent for a starfish organization is often...

Mamoud’s government had created small circles to combat al Qaeda. By day, the circles’ members are police officers or former military experts—people who are well trained in conducting raid operations.

The government supplies them with ammunition and doesn’t ask many questions. The members of each circle don’t know how many other circles there are, nor who’s a member.

A different strategy could be accepting that music distribution channels have changed forever.

Wonder if they could have rewarded people for turning each other in. Give them equity.

In the decentralized revolution, old strategies don’t work.

sometimes it’s best to draw upon both the centralized and decentralized worlds—what we call “the combo special.”