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

by Ori Brafman

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.

Tolerance for Ambiguity

Catalysts aren’t absentminded. They often don’t know because there aren’t concrete answers to these questions. 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.

Hands-Off Approach Perhaps the most difficult and counterintuitive element of being a catalyst is getting out of the way.

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. At the same time, when left to their own devices, members of a starfish organization can become frustrated with the catalyst. “What are we supposed to be doing?” they may ask. But it’s precisely this question that leads people to take charge, giving members a high level of ownership over the organization.

Receding After catalysts map a network, make connections, build trust, and inspire people to act, what do they do? They leave.