The Spider Versus The Starfish

In the last few columns, we have explored some unexpected properties of noise, and we could easily continue that line of thought for a whole book. There is much more to noise than meets the ear. However, I recently discovered a new book that is peripherally related to the main subject of this series. The book is The Starfish and the Spider sub-titled "The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations" by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom. This book is sufficiently interesting that it interrupts the noise.

Starfish is a metaphor indicating organizations without a strong hierarchy. You cut off a starfish’s arm, and it simply grows as new one. Depending on the cut, the arm might also grow a new body. It has no strong central organization. Spider is a metaphor for highly structured hierarchical organizations. You cut off a spider’s head and the whole web is out of commission. Nothing works anymore.

Both types of organizations have strengths and weaknesses (after all, we do have both real starfish and spiders in our eco-sphere), but the strengths of the starfish are not as obvious since we have been surrounded by hierarchical organizations such as General Motors and IBM throughout our culture. I suppose the prime example is the Roman Catholic Church. Military forces are obviously hierarchical. That is, regular military forces are highly organized.

But throughout history, traditional professional military officers have been perplexed when they run into a starfish. Two spiders squaring off against each other know the rules and can fight until one of them is dead, but a spider going against a starfish is another matter. In colonial times, the stiff British soldiers did not understand the concept of isolated combatants in camouflage firing from behind trees at lines of marching troops in red jackets. They expected a foe that was more traditional. In fact, the war was fought with a hybrid organization.

In a similar manner, today we see a lot of press about the necessity of capturing Osama, but would removing him make any difference in global terrorism? The answer is probably some effect would be noticed, but terrorism would not necessarily disintegrate because it is more starfish-like than spider-like. Breaking up his immediate organization would be roughly like cutting up starfish and throwing them back into the ocean.

The book is full of examples of the unexpected robustness of starfish. Much is made of eBay and Craigslist and how they evolve. Years ago General Motors hired an analyst who was impressed with the tendency toward decentralization and recommended more of the same. He immediately went from being a beloved golden boy to persona non grata. But he was not out of business. He went to Japan and had some good advice for automobile manufacturers. The rest is history.

If you are exploring a business opportunity or trying to overthrow a regime, which form of organization should you use? My take is that both extremes and the various hybrids are simply tools and like all tools have areas in which they work better than alternatives. You can drive a screw into a board with a hammer, but a screwdriver works better. The American colonists, like the Indians under British Raj two hundred years later, succeeded in breaking away from the mother country by non-traditional methods. The choice of strategies was at least partly determined by the available material for the struggle. The colonists were familiar with native techniques and did not have as much material wealth as the British. The Indians used a non-violent approach, but the rebels did not have any guns, tanks, or planes to match the forces of the occupiers — this is simply an observation, not a putdown of their technique.

We often feature puzzles, and this book presents some truly spectacular puzzles for consideration.

In response to the interest my original tutorial generated, I have completely rewritten and expanded it. Check out the tutorial availability through Lockergnome. The new version is over 100 pages long with chapters that alternate between discussion of the theoretical aspects and puzzles just for the fun of it. Puzzle lovers will be glad to know that I included an answers section that includes discussions as to why the answer is correct and how it was obtained. Most of the material has appeared in these columns, but some is new. Most of the discussions are expanded compared to what they were in the original column format.

[tags]decision theory, The Starfish and the Spider[/tags]