The Starfish and the Spider
The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organisations by Ori Brafman
We love this book. Its a management book by genre, but so relevant to some of the issues presenting in the Methodist church. In a sense it helps us reflect on our history, when we were quite starfishlike, and yet now, we are much more spidery….or the tension between Primitive and Wesleyan Methodism. The other clincher for me, is how cows caused the defeat of the Apache – for us its buildings and bank accounts!
Intrigued? The key is a spider is centrally lead, and the legs are under the bodies control. The starfish is a collaborative network, where every part has neurons, control, and if you cut off the leg of a starfish, both parts grow into new ones.