The basic idea is that if you cut off the head of a spider, it dies. But if you cut of the leg of a starfish, the starfish grows a new leg, and the cut off part becomes a new starfish! The book contrasts centralized, top-down organizations (read any corporation you can think of, your workplace, church, volunteer organization, etc.) with decentralized, "leaderless" organizations. It's MGM vs. Napster and it's further mutations in the first chapter.
Jonny Baker has a review on his blog. He contrasts the characteristics of the traditional CEO with the "catalyst" that is essential to "starfish" organizations:
CEO | catalystI've learned a few things about our kind of business in the past year. One is the importance of leadership. This is a business that works when you have good leadership above you who are supportive and able to help you grow your business. We tried it twice before without that, and never really got off the ground. But more than just being willing and available, even knowledgeable, effective leaders in network marketing have the characteristics of the catalyst.
boss | peer
command and control | trust
rational | emotionally intelligent
powerful | inspirational
directive | collaborative
in the spotlight | behind the scenes
order | ambiguity
organising | connecting
The obvious corollary is this: in order to succeed we need to become this kind of leader to those in our organizations.
1 comments:
Maria has hit on an ESSENTIAL element of leadership in Network Marketing. I love the term catalyst. One of the big differences in Network Marketing is the absence of authority. I have no authority over anyone in our successline. Of course good leaders in any organization resist the temptation to use authority. Instead good leaders use influence. In Network Marketing we are forced to sharpen our ability to influence because of the lack of authority. And this boils down to authenticity. The more authentic you are the more influence you will have.
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