The starfish and the spider

Since I read the book “The starfish and the spider” I can see them everywhere. I am not talking about the actual animals but about organisations. According to Brafman & Beckstrom (2006) organisations are comparable to starfish and spiders. A spider stands for a centralized hierarchical organisation while a starfish stands for decentralized organisations. Because this might sound a little vague, let me explain…trend towards professionalization in organisations. When the professionalism of an individual or an organisation increases, a person may experience a hard time receiving orders from the top. If this person is specialized in a case, why should someone else, with less knowledge about the case, decide what to do with it? Because of such issues, organisations - with hierarchic elements – can be incapable to make decisions. These so called spiders have one head, which is its control centre, its centre of power. When you chop of its head, the spider is dies; it is not longer able to function.
Other than a spider, a starfish has no head and no centre of power, it has got legs. When you chop off one of those legs, the starfish will continue to function and a new leg will grow back. The starfish stands for an organisation with a decentralized network structure, where all the individuals in an organisation depend on each other but the power of decision making is spread.

As I said, I can see them everywhere, and that is the reason I am writing this blog. Transforming a spider into a starfish is a huge task. A big part of the power, which is centred in the head of a spider, must be spread into its legs until there is no head anymore. This transformation goes hand in hand with the use of a lot of media. Because the decision-making in the organisation will happen in different ‘legs’ this must be well communicated with other legs; internal communication systems are a must for these starfish. Which systems these starfish use I don’t know yet, but I’ll definitely find out. Next week I have an interview scheduled with a network organisation. I’ll keep you posted!

Our society is changing; one of these changes is the