The difference between successful organizations is not between the business and the social sector, the
difference is between good organizations and great ones.
Customer Reviews:
Thought-provoking for non-profits.......2007-09-06
A friend mentioned Good to Great in a sermon and I thought it might be a worthwhile read for me as the executive director of a non-profit association facing the challenge of how take the organization to the next level.
I found the book fascinating and will share it with my Board of Directors as a roadmap for how we will move our organization from good to great.
The monograph provides a great overview of the concepts developed in the book and is of a very manageable length.
I would strongly recommend it to leaders of non-profits as a basis for a conversation about their organization making the great leap forward.
A must read for anyone in a leadership position.......2007-09-05
This is a great companion for Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't for anyone that works in the social sector. As an assistant principal in a large, suburban high school, this book helped to bring into focus the principles reviewed in Good to Great.
Great Principles make for Great Outcomes.......2007-09-04
The social sector does not need to be more business like; it needs to implement more great business principles tailored for the social entities economic engine - so says Collins in this 35 page, add-on for a future "Good to Great" update. In addition to tailoring some of the Great principles
* Define Great by calibrating success without business (monetary) metrics
* Lead thru a blend of personal humility and professional will to get things done within a diffuse power structure
* Get high quality people with a personal commitment to the cause on-board the bus
* Find the intersection of the social entity's Passion, Best at, and its Resource Engine
* Build brand recognition
to the specifics of the social entity, Collins suggests that the leadership principle of managing within a diffuse power structure is something for the business sector to learn; as business executives do not have the same concentration of pure executive power they once enjoyed.
All in, a useful bit of thinking for those in a not-for-profit enterprise, as well as for business leaders who like to look at organizational effectiveness from different perspectives. Dennis DeWilde, author of The Performance Connection
Good to GREAT.......2007-08-10
Jim Collins is always spot on. The insights he presents are presented with such clarity and ease of reading that I look forward to anything he does. I use it as a key part of the extensive Strategic Visioning work I do. While I enjoy all of his work, being in the social service sector, I can personally and professionally validate this offering with enthusiasm.
Book review of Good to Great.......2007-06-30
I thought the book was awesome. The concepts of how to become a Great Leader was quite helpful. These are concepts that I'll use to try and move my organization "From Good to Great.
Book Description
In Leading Change, John Kotter examines the efforts of more than 100 companies to remake themselves into better competitors. He identifies the most common mistakes leaders and managers make in attempting to create change and offers an eight-step process to overcome the obstacles and carry out the firm's agenda: establishing a greater sense of urgency, creating the guiding coalition, developing a vision and strategy, communicating the change vision, empowering others to act, creating short-term wins, consolidating gains and producing even more change, and institutionalizing new approaches in the future. This highly personal book reveals what John Kotter has seen, heard, experienced, and concluded in 25 years of working with companies to create lasting transformation.
Customer Reviews:
Effectively Managing Change.......2007-08-17
In this book, Kotter methodically and carefully explains his eight-step process for creating major change in business organizations. He notes that the rate of organisational change has been increasing in recent years. The rapid and continual innovation in technology is driving changes to organisational systems and processes. There are also increased expectations of employees as they move more freely between organisations.
Kotter highlights the critical importance of leadership in any change programme. Strong, sustained leadership is crucial to changing deeply rooted corporate cultures and successfully implementing the change process.
John Kotter describes a helpful eight step model for understanding and managing change. Each stage acknowledges a key principle identified by Kotter relating to people's response and approach to change, in which people see, feel and then change.
In spite of the importance and permanence of organisational change, most change initiatives fail to deliver the expected organisational benefits. This book should help those involved in the change process to avoid the pitfalls and follow the eight steps that are explained in detail in the book.
Anyone planning or implementing a change programme will find the book useful, helpful and handy. The author presents the subject in a simple, concise, and easy to follow format.
Wow - thoughtful AND useful.......2007-06-28
Kotter's book is a roadmap of how to introduce a culture change effectively into an organization. Similar to "Good to Great" (Jim Collins), the book is much better organized and thorough.
Amazing!!.......2007-06-26
Have no further words to describe how increrable John Kotter brings in a easy way a subject so complex and important now-a-days. Indeed, it is recommend for all leaders who wants to take right decisions during turbulent times.
Still the definitive work on Change.......2007-06-13
I have been working in the change arena for the last 15 years and Kotter's book on Leading Change is still the definitive work. Based on his seminal 1994 HBR article "Leading Change: Why Transformations efforts fail" this is the best down-to-earth guide for both consultants and managers leading change. It has good practical examples and straightforward arguments - no psychological mumbo jumbo.
Envision, introduce, sustain change. or die........2007-05-09
Kotter gives us here a valuable handbook on how to visualize, introduce, and sustain change in an organization. Here are a few quotes:
"Handling new initiatives quickly is not an essential component of success in relatively stable or cartel-like environments. The problem for us today is that stability is no longer the norm. And most experts agree that over the next few decades the business environment will become only more volatile."
"Useful change tends to be associated with a multistep process that creates power and motivation sufficient to overwhelm all the sources of inertia."
Book Description
With its conversational writing style, cutting-edge content, current examples, the three-level integrative model, dialogues, and technological learning tools, Organizational Behavior remains
the global book, used by more readers interested in the topic than any other since 1979. The 12th edition retains all of the best features of the previous editions, yet adds much more: contemporary issues and research have been included into a seamless, whole, and comprehensive tome.
Many topics are comprehensively covered, but on the whole, this book is written in a conversational, easy to read style. Topics include: management functions; the social sciences; helping employees balance work and other responsibilities; improving people skills; improving customer service; motivational concepts; communication; power and politics; conflict and negotiation; culture; and stress management.
Globally accepted and written by one of the most foremost authors in the field, this is a necessary read for all managers, human resource workers, and anyone needing to understand and improve their people skills.
Customer Reviews:
Organizational Behavior.......2007-09-30
This was my first experience ordering a College Textbook on Amazon. I ordered a brand new book and CD and was very pleased to receive my order in time for my class. Most important I was able buy a brand new textbook at a used textbook price. I liked being able to provide my credit card information to an Amazon rep by phone rather than send it over the Internet. I plan to use Amazon again for my future requirements.
A classic reference for OB.......2007-07-01
Recently I took a course about Organizational Behavior & this was the course textbook. It's a reasonable choice for an introductory course. I found it easy to read & informative. However, the accompanying SAL CD-ROM was disappointing - I didn't think it was worth the effort.
Bottom line - I would recommend it.
Book Description
Women are constantly being told that it's simply too difficult to balance work and family, so if they don't really "have to" work, it's better for their families if they stay home. Not only is this untrue, Leslie Bennetts says, but the arguments in favor of stay-at-home motherhood fail to consider the surprising benefits of work and the unexpected toll of giving it up. It's time, she says, to get the message across -- combining work and family really is the best choice for most women, and it's eminently doable.
Bennetts and millions of other working women provide ample proof that there are many different ways to have kids, maintain a challenging career, and have a richly rewarding life as a result. Earning money and being successful not only make women feel great, but when women sacrifice their financial autonomy by quitting their jobs, they become vulnerable to divorce as well as the potential illness, death, or unemployment of their breadwinner husbands. Further, they forfeit the intellectual, emotional, psychological, and even medical benefits of self-sufficiency.
The truth is that when women gamble on dependancy, most eventually end up on the wrong side of the odds. In riveting interviews with women from a wide range of backgrounds, Bennetts tells their dramatic stories -- some triumphant, others heartbreaking.
The Feminine Mistake will inspire women to accept the challenge of figuring out who they are and what they want to do with their lives in addition to raising children. Not since Betty Friedan has anyone offered such an eye-opening and persuasive argument for why women can -- and should -- embrace the joyously complex lives they deserve.
Customer Reviews:
Please read this book.......2007-10-03
I am a female attorney who has been practising family law for 26 years.
When I first started out, I represented many women who were married in the 1940's, 50's and 60's, when society felt that every woman's place was in the home. As a result, many "displaced homemakers" suddenly found themselves facing poverty in their old age. My own generation (the baby-boomers) all seemed to gravitate towards careers, so the displaced, poverty-stricken homemakers would be a thing of the past, right?
Wrong.
I am stunned to discover how many women in their 20's and 30's (the so-called post-feminist generation) are opting to become stay-at-home moms.
What is the problem, you ask?
In one word - DIVORCE.
And don't say it'll never happen to you. After all, I'm sure you buy smoke detectors, don't leave matches within your children's reach, don't leave candles or a stovetop unattended - but I'll also bet you also have homeowner's insurance, in case the unthinkable happened and your house caught on fire.
I've known so many women who tried so hard to be terrific wives, great mothers - and still found themselves divorced. Making sure you always have marketable skills so that you are able to support yourself and your children is like buying homeowner's insurance.
Of all the divorced SAHM's I've known, very very few are able to return to the workforce and earn enough money to support their families in the same lifestyle they enjoyed during the marriage. Sure, you can always get a minimum-wage job as a sales clerk or a waitress, but it will not buy you a middle-class lifestyle. Well-paying jobs will go to either a) recent college graduates, with newly-learned marketable skills or b) people who have spent the last 5, 10 or 15 years working their way up the ladder.
This book is a must-read, especially for young SAHM's who are confident that their marriage will last forever and that they will have no trouble re-entering the workforce any time they choose. I do have two criticisms, though: one, it is repetitive (one needn't repeat the same thing over and over to make a point) and it focuses almost exclusively on upper-middle class women, who are only a minority of the population.
Actually, upper-middle class SAHM's often suffer the worst, financially and emotionally, from a divorce, since they tend to have the most unrealistic expectations about the workplace (especially those who never worked outside the home at all) and they experience the biggest drop in lifestyle.
The men, on the other hand, tend to do very well after the divorce, simply because they have always had a well-paying career, without interruption, and after the initial financial hit (splitting the assets and paying child support) they keep on earning a high income, year after year.
Use of Ancedotal Evidence Left Me Frustrated and Confused.......2007-09-27
I would not recommend this book. It's a shame really, b/c I think Ms. Bennetts has a good message. Unfortunately she seems to base many of her points on ancedotal evidence. The writing style was a bit choppy and I couldn't figure out if Ms. Bennetts simply chose the wrong ancedote each time or if she truly wants women to not only support themselves, but to drive fancy cars and live in fancy houses.
Her apparent emphasis on material wealth repeatedly seemed to undermine her intentions. And the use of ancedotal evidence just compromised her authority. Perhaps I should have been tipped off at the start of the book when she used her mother as an example of a woman that was able to balance family and work successfully without reprocussions. (Too bad she doesn't emphasize the fact that her grandmother provided the childcare.)
Another example is when she put down a stay-at-home mom for driving old cars in order to live in a wealthy neighborhood with a good school system. Ms. Bennetts seemed to imply that the mother should go back to work so her family could afford new cars and other such luxuries. Surely this wasn't her point, or was it?
I was looking for a book that would support my decision to remain a working mom; however, examples like these throughout the book left me questioning the true message of the book and left me frustrated.
SAHMs Beware.......2007-09-27
Women do bash each other too much, but that's probably because we are all trying to be good at so many contradictory things -- and are afraid we're failing at all of them.
This book has jumped right into the "mommy wars," and been bashed accordingly.
Even though young women want to do life differently than their mothers did (who - trust me - wanted to do life even more differently than THEIR mothers did), we all keep circling around the same problem: We want our families to flourish. We just don't want to become penniless and futureless doing it.
This highly readable book argues that combining work and motherhood is tough but possible and even rewarding. Bennetts contends that depending on husbands to earn all the family money is very risky, and she is quite believable when she describes the many ways that this way of life can go wrong.
Bennetts is also not buying many of the "reasons" that have become fashionable for mom's total surrender of jobs, money, and benefits. She is at her most entertaining when she dissects today's version of the weary cult of motherhood, in which only mom's incessant hands-on attention is presumed to create conditions in which an infant can even survive.
Entertaining and thought-provoking.
Wise Counter Argument to Stay at Home Mom Phenom.......2007-09-10
As far as this topic goes, I've always been a live and let live kind of woman, although I would personally not be comfortable totally relying on a man to support me financially. All the women in my family have worked. I grew up with a working mom, who was a stay at home mom, until she found herself widowed with an 11 month old daughter. When I would hear those "I didn't even know where the checkbook was" stories from women who had either been abandoned or did the abandoning, I always thought...where the heck was your brain? Even if you are a housewife/full time mother, you are and ADULT in your home and should share in the responsibility of guiding your family's financial future. I have a very dear friend who is a stay at home mother and home schools her children. She does part time sales, but guess what..she does the books! Her husband wouldn't dare make a financial move without her and it works for them. Conversely, I have friends who also have husbands who earn a good living, but they work, because they feel they are able to contribute more. As a single woman, it is sometimes daunting to think that I am fully responsible for my financial future..but after reading this book, it reminded me that even if I were married, I would still be fully responsible. I'm also a fairly conservative person, but I have to say, I've seen the church and conservative politicians try to hammer home that the BEST solution for families is to have the mother at home while the father worked. But even GOD allows for personal choice, and if I remember my Bible correctly, the Proverbs 31 woman worked both inside and outside of her household. To me the best solution is to do what works for you. If you feel that you should stay home, then stay home. If you feel that you should work, then work. Each choice, like most choices, comes with its pros and cons. However, whatever your choice, in life, you should always make it a priority to educate yourself and develop a skill.
A Relevant Warning to Women.......2007-09-07
This book serves as a warning to all women who have children or are thinking about having children, that you can't always depend on a man to support you. For women who are thinking about dropping out to raise children they need to think of the long term consequences of their future earning power.
Book Description
"The Human Side of Organizations" delivers complete, up-to-date, practical information on how people behave in organizations presented in a readable, easy to understand form. The vital information can be used to understand managers, peers or workers. If you work, you need this information to thrive and survive.
FOCUS BOXES/Reality Checks - Bring the work world as it really is into every chapter./Question of Ethics - Presents ethical questions related to the particular chapters' material./A Global Glance - A look at an international aspect of a chapters' concepts./FYI - A new focus box for the 9e./Presents useful hints readers can apply in their daily lives.
Anyone who wishes to better understand managers, peers, or workers can benefit from this book as it covers the vital skills needed to survive and thrive in an organization.
Customer Reviews:
Good Service.......2007-02-24
Received Book in about 2 weeks after purchase. Book was in excellent condition. Good Service.
Exceeded Expectations.......2005-09-30
My textbook came sooner than expected and it was in great condition! The savings were unbelievable and I actually recommended using this seller to everyone in my class.
Book Description
From the most trusted voice on transition, a revised edition of the classic practical guide to dealing with the human side of organizational change.
The business world is a place of constant change, with stories of corporate mergers, layoffs, bankruptcy, and restructuring hitting the news every day. Yet as veteran consultant William Bridges maintains, the situational changes are not as difficult for companies to make as the psychological transitions. In the best-selling Managing Transitions, Bridges provides a clear understanding of what change does to employees and what employees in transition can do to an organization.
Directed at managers and employees in today's corporations, Bridges shows how to minimize the distress and disruptions caused by change. Managing Transitions addresses the fact that it is people who have to carry out the change. When the book was originally published a decade ago, Bridges was the first to provide any real sense of the emotional impact of change and what can be done to keep it from disrupting the entire organization. With new information and commentary on layoffs, corporate suspicion, and the increasing tumult in the business world, Managing Transitions remains the definitive guide to dealing with change.
Customer Reviews:
High rating for a textbook, but it deserves it........2007-08-11
I have had several textbooks in Management between an Undergraduate, Graduate and Business itself. This was no different in that I expected the same old stuff, but was very pleasantly surprised at the authors candor about our perceptions of business practices. It didn't mince words on several tactics used by management and explained why so much doesn't work. It got my attention and I continued my reading with far more interest. There really isn't anything more complimentary I can say than I intend to sell all other books to new students, excect this one which I will hang on to and reference.
great results from this book.......2007-07-06
This is a wonderful book. If you deal with people who need to change how they do their work you must read this book.
great, short, valuable.......2007-07-04
This is a great book for all people who deal with people that are dealing with change. I have found this book useful when being a change agent for a company, or just for management in my own company. Part of the value of this book is it describes the emotional aspect of change. People are not always (usually) logical. Emotions play a large part. Knowing how to deal with the emotional aspect of change is essential. This book gives you great insights in this area.
Managing Transitions by William Bridges.......2007-05-13
This book is great! I was/am dealing with some pretty significant transitions -- the sudden death of my 21 year-old daughter, and a major division re-org at an S&P 500 company. Several months earlier, my VP had mentioned the book and suggested that all of his direct reports to read it. I did and it really hit home.
The author does an excellent job of describing the emotional and organizational impact of change and the mechanics of the process we use to get through it. We use the same basic process to deal with all change -- personal and professional -- and it has been very helpful to understand how it works. There is also a section in the book about the life cycle of an organization and that was illuminating. The book provided some tools to help me make critical decisions.
I bought six copies of the book and have given them out to friends and co-workers.
Great ~.......2007-05-07
This was a great book and well needed. If your your in or responsible for transitions. This is for you - an eye opener to some great ideas and the author takes the reader to both sides of the good and bad involving the transitional process and how it should be done. Great insight!
Book Description
Understanding the amazing force that links some of today's most successful companies
If you cut off a spider's leg, it's crippled; if you cut off its head, it dies. But if you cut off a starfish's leg it grows a new one, and the old leg can grow into an entirely new starfish.
What's the hidden power behind the success of Wikipedia, craigslist, and Skype? What do eBay and General Electric have in common with the abolitionist and women's rights movements? What fundamental choice put General Motors and Toyota on vastly different paths? How could winning a Supreme Court case be the biggest mistake MGM could have made?
After five years of ground-breaking research, Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom share some unexpected answers, gripping stories, and a tapestry of unlikely connections. The Starfish and the Spider argues that organizations fall into two categories: traditional “spiders,” which have a rigid hierarchy and top-down leadership, and revolutionary “starfish,” which rely on the power of peer relationships.
The Starfish and the Spider explores what happens when starfish take on spiders (such as the music industry vs. Napster, Kazaa, and the P2P services that followed). It reveals how established companies and institutions, from IBM to Intuit to the US government, are also learning how to incorporate starfish principles to achieve success. The book explores:
* How the Apaches fended off the powerful Spanish army for 200 years
* The power of a simple circle
* The importance of catalysts who have an uncanny ability to bring people together
* How the Internet has become a breeding ground for leaderless organizations
* How Alcoholics Anonymous has reached untold millions with only a shared ideology and without a leader
The Starfish and the Spider is the rare book that will change how you understand the world around you. BACKCOVER:
Advance praise for The Starfish and the Spider
“The Starfish and the Spider is a compelling and important book.”
—Pierre Omidyar, CEO, Omidyar Network and Founder and Chairman, eBay Inc.
“The Starfish and the Spider, like Blink, The Tipping Point, and The Wisdom of Crowds before it, showed me a provocative new way to look at the world and at business. It's also fun to read!”
—Robin Wolaner, founder, Parenting Magazine and author, Naked in the Boardroom
“A fantastic read. Constantly weaving stories and connections. You'll never see the world the same way again.”
—Nicholas J. Nicholas Jr., former Co-CEO, Time Warner
“A must-read. Starfish are changing the face of business and society. This page-turner is provocative and compelling.”
—David Martin, CEO, Young Presidents' Organization
“The Starfish and the Spider provides a powerful prism for understanding the patterns and potential of self-organizing systems.”
—Steve Jurvetson, Partner, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
“The Starfish and the Spider lifts the lid on a massive revolution in the making, a revolution certain to reshape every organization on the planet from bridge clubs to global governments. Brafman and Beckstrom elegantly describe what is afoot and offer a wealth of insights that will be invaluable to anyone starting something new—or rescuing something old—amidst this vast shift.”
—Paul Saffo, Director, Institute for the Future
“The Starfish and the Spider is great reading. [It has] not only stimulated my thinking, but as a result of the reading, I proposed ten action points for my own organization."
—Professor Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum
Customer Reviews:
Seek not stardom, just starfishdom.......2007-09-06
Whether or not you care about leaderless, borderless and/or decentralized organizations, labeled as starfish organizations, they probably affect your life in some way or another whether you have downloaded music or avoided it, dealt with PETA, looked up something in Wikipedia, had actions of al-Qaeda affect your life in some way like stricter restrictions at the airports, etc. In that sense, you might as well get to know something about them to make better use of them or be prepared to deal with them effectively when you have to. If you read this book, you will likely not just want to know or know more about them, but get involved to see what they're all about or get more involved.
Written from both an overview and hands-on approach, this book is not only useful as a reference but also as a manual on the issue. The book identified the qualities of starfish organizations and what makes them effective, how anyone and everyone could start, sustain and/or get involved in these organizations, the types of people key to such organizations and how to combat them if you're on the other side. The book also warns about the constant change involved with maintaining starfish organizations and how to deal with them. Guidelines are offered and useful real life examples illustrate them to bring to life what otherwise be just concepts.
I had two small criticisms about the book, but nothing major enough to deter it from getting the five star rating I felt it deserved. First was that a few more real life examples of starfish organizations and/or their actions could have been chosen to illustrate some of the points made. There were plenty of diverse examples, but so many more abound as I read and thought about traits and qualities of starfish organizations that if mentioned, readers would realize even more influence starfish organizations have had in their lives. Second was that it did not address how government could use this book to decentralize since decentralization could be so powerful but yet government is the epitomy of centralization. I work for government, and felt government badly needed this, but had to think it through myself to come up with uses for attracting colleagues to my Starfish and Spider for Lunch (and Learn) voluntary book review session. When I did, though, not only was I excited at the possibilities, but also at the challenge to try to convince senior management of this, although that will take time. I will contact the authors to address this issue in a follow-up companion, perhaps, as they are the experts on this, but if nothing else, my ability to customize an application to government should tell you something about the book's effectiveness as a manual.
Overall, for the excellent writing style, clarity, impact and general application to the masses, five starfish!
Peter NYC.......2007-09-06
This book is great. A must read for those interested in being flexible and evolving. Has important applications across multiple work environments.
Useful introduction, but there's more ... .......2007-08-29
It took me some time to warm to this book. Nothing much happens in the initial 80 pages. The first chapter develops two fairly tortuous case studies - the vicissitudes of fortune in the recording industry in the last decade and the struggle of the Apaches against the Spanish invaders - to introduce the theme of the book. Then follows a discussion of the morphology of decentralised organisations (in terms of power distribution, funding, etc). Chapter 3 illustrates these formal characteristics with a series of examples, ranging from Skype over Wikipedia to Burning Man. There is honestly not a lot of meat to chew on in these first chapters and some patience is required from the reader.
It becomes more interesting in Chapter 4 where Brafman and Beckstrom discuss operational principles behind decentralised organisations (the need for pre-existing networks as a substrate, the role of catalysts and champions to activate leaderless organisation, "circles" as their chief co-ordination mechanism, and "ideology" as the glue holding everything more or less together). The role of the catalyst as a "servant leader" (term, however, not used by the authors) is further elaborated in the fifth chapter.
In chapter 6, the discussion turns to the question "What do you do, as an incumbent, when you are under fire from a starfish?" It transpires that there is not an awful lot to be done: you can try to morph them into a spider by activating internal cancer cells (greed and competition), you can try to dissolve or change the glue, the ideology that keeps the structure together or you can join them and become decentralised too (then it's starfish against starfish).
Brafman and Beckstrom maintain that it is not always necessary to go all the way and radically decentralise. There is such thing as a "hybrid" organisation (Chapter 7), which mixes principles of centralisation and decentralisation. Here the discussion suddenly gets denser and this is a part of the book that warrants repeated reading. A distinction is made between centralised organisations that give customers a voice (eBay with its peer-to-peer feedback is an example), those that put their customers to work (IBM developing open source applications) and those that decentralise parts of their internal structure. Towards the end of the chapter, however, the discussion peters out. "Appreciative Enquiry" is invoked as an approach to bring a whiff of decentralisation into companies who want to hang on to their centralised bureaucracies. It's a dangerous example that may tempt people into crass opportunism (that is, however, bound to backfire on them).
Finally, the authors hypothesise that in a given ecosystem there is no static equilibrium in terms of right mix of centralised/decentralised characteristics ("right" in terms of securing survival and the ability to extract economic rent). The "sweet spot" changes as a function of time, sometimes dramatically so. The desire for anonymity and the free flow of information are forces that push towards the decentralisation end, whilst the desire for security and accountability pull the system back to a more centralised mode of operation.
The book closes with a short epilogue that lists 10 simple guiding principles to make the most out of decentralised organisations or to defend yourself from their attacks.
On the whole, I enjoyed this book. It provides an intelligent and accessible discussion of a complex issue. With respect to the latter, the authors do a laudable job in keeping thing simple, but sometimes it's over the top. Particularly in the first halve of the book, their penchant for telling anecdotes and stories makes them err on the side of the trivial (a discussion on Wikipedia starts with "we all remember doing school reports in the sixth grade. Back then, research meant going to the library and hoping the that the Encyclopaedia Brittanica wasn't checked out ... and so on, and so on.) I was irked more than once by the patronising and befuddling prose of Brafman & Beckstrom. Admittedly, sometimes they hit it right. The title of the book, for example, is a very strong and aptly chosen metaphor for decentralised and centralised organisations, respectively.
Also I believe this book does not exhaust the potential of this fascinating subject matter. I think the discussion would have gained significantly in clarity and power if only a number of well known systems science principles (such as Ashby's Law of Requisity Variety, see Introduction to Cybernetics (University Paperbacks)) had been invoked to give the whole discussion a rock solid footing. I also missed a solid link to the burgeoning literature on the P2P movement. It is clear that the issue of property rights in central in making leaderless organisations work (Brafman discusses this as a way to sabotage starfish only) and people like Lawrence Lessig ("Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity) and Yochai Benkler ("The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom") have a lot to say about these issues.
A small point, but a fairly irritating one, is the use of the word "ideology" in the book. The authors ostensibly use this to refer to any set of beliefs that underpin a decentralised organisation. From my point of view, the word "ideology" refers to a more elaborate and closed system of abstract thought (and as such has a pejorative tinge to it). Many starfish (also amongst those mentioned in the book) thrive on a much more vague and fluid set of beliefs, norms and values. It's worthwhile to be more nuanced about this.
Morally speaking, the book leaves the reader in suspension. From an internal point of view, leaderless organisations are unquestionably superior - morally and aesthetically - to centralised organisations, not only because of their structural simplicity and elegance, but also because they rely so openly on trust (in my opinion THE key word in the book), on the belief that man is fundamentally good and ultimately because they are capable of drawing the best from people and providing them with truthfulness, meaning and purpose in their life. Problem is that not only Alcoholics Anonymous operates as a decentralised organisation, but Al Qaeda does too. So starfish can server all kinds of purposes, some more constructive than others. It all depends which side you're on.
Starfish is a mind-game.......2007-08-07
Have you wondered why decentralized organizations are growing like wildfire? Starfish and Spider will tell you why. I work in a starfish organization and it is not for the faint-hearted or the one focused on structure and procedure.
This book is an excellent story about centralized, decentralized and hybrid organizations. If you want to kill a spider, cut off its head. You cannot cut off the head of a starfish as it does not have one. If cut off the leg of an starfish, it will grow another.......starfish. This shows how decentralized organizations have always been around and take after the way that our brain's function. Once thought to operate in a hierarchy, latest research shows the opposite. Brafman and Beckstrom are great storytellers and weave the Internet with Al Qadea
This book gives examples of the characteristics of decentralized organizations such as flexibility, shared power and ambiguity and how the Internet has spawned a new generation of decentralized organizations. It is a fascinating book.
Some principles of decentralized organizations;
1. when attacked, they become even more open and decentralized.
2. it is easy to mistake starfish for spiders.
3. an open system doesn't have central intelligence, the intelligence is spread throughout the system.
4. open systems can easily mutate.
5. the decentralized organization sneaks up on you.
6. as industries become decentralized, overall profits decrease.
They stand on 5 legs;
1. Circles
2. the Catalyst
3. Ideology
4. the pre-existing network
5. the Champion
If you want to learn more about community, trust and openness in the 21st century, this is a must read. If you are interested in how organizations like Al Qaeda can thrive with many in the world looking for them, read this book.
Elusive Nodes.......2007-07-31
This book offers an excellent discussion of the extremely elusive concept of networked type of organizations which social scientists refer to as organizations where decision making power is distributed and whose structure is flat. Such an organization consists of semi-autonomous nodes or cells linked and given cohesion by one or more factors such as kinship, mutual experiences, ethnic culture, or common ideology. In the 21st Century the Global Telecommunications Network (sic) serves as an enabler to networked type of organizations. The book, "Networks and Netwars" (Rand 2001, Amazon.com) provides a formal explanation of networked type of organizations, but will leave many folks still wondering about the anatomy of a networked type of organization.
The book quit effectively uses examples and the analogy of a starfish to both demonstrate and explain how networked type of organizations actually work in practice. This is very important and helpful because such organizations are becoming increasingly more common, but are very difficult for persons used to hierarchical organizations to understand. The book explains for example how the command and control system for al Qaeda cannot be knocked out because it does not exist. More ominously the book notes that as the U.S. increasingly centralizes its efforts against al Qaeda the harder it will be to cope with terrorist operations and threats.
There are now several first rate books available now on networked type of organizations, but this one is probably the best because of the clarity with which it explains what networked type of organizations are and how they really work. It is a shame that the U.S. Intelligence and National Security Communities appear unable to come to grips with geographically dispersed cell of one or more individuals using distributed decision making, and linked by such tenuous ties as personal relationships and shared ideology. This book offers some suggestions for dealing with networked type of organizations, but one is left with the impression that nobody is listening.
Amazon.com
Bestselling author Nassim Nicholas Taleb continues his exploration of randomness in his fascinating new book, The Black Swan, in which he examines the influence of highly improbable and unpredictable events that have massive impact. Engaging and enlightening, The Black Swan is a book that may change the way you think about the world, a book that Chris Anderson calls, "a delightful romp through history, economics, and the frailties of human nature." See Anderson's entire guest review below.
Guest Reviewer: Chris Anderson
Chris Anderson is editor-in-chief of Wired magazine and the author of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More.
Four hundred years ago, Francis Bacon warned that our minds are wired to deceive us. "Beware the fallacies into which undisciplined thinkers most easily fall--they are the real distorting prisms of human nature." Chief among them: "Assuming more order than exists in chaotic nature." Now consider the typical stock market report: "Today investors bid shares down out of concern over Iranian oil production." Sigh. We're still doing it.
Our brains are wired for narrative, not statistical uncertainty. And so we tell ourselves simple stories to explain complex thing we don't--and, most importantly, can't--know. The truth is that we have no idea why stock markets go up or down on any given day, and whatever reason we give is sure to be grossly simplified, if not flat out wrong.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb first made this argument in Fooled by Randomness, an engaging look at the history and reasons for our predilection for self-deception when it comes to statistics. Now, in The Black Swan: the Impact of the Highly Improbable, he focuses on that most dismal of sciences, predicting the future. Forecasting is not just at the heart of Wall Street, but it's something each of us does every time we make an insurance payment or strap on a seat belt.
The problem, Nassim explains, is that we place too much weight on the odds that past events will repeat (diligently trying to follow the path of the "millionaire next door," when unrepeatable chance is a better explanation). Instead, the really important events are rare and unpredictable. He calls them Black Swans, which is a reference to a 17th century philosophical thought experiment. In Europe all anyone had ever seen were white swans; indeed, "all swans are white" had long been used as the standard example of a scientific truth. So what was the chance of seeing a black one? Impossible to calculate, or at least they were until 1697, when explorers found Cygnus atratus in Australia.
Nassim argues that most of the really big events in our world are rare and unpredictable, and thus trying to extract generalizable stories to explain them may be emotionally satisfying, but it's practically useless. September 11th is one such example, and stock market crashes are another. Or, as he puts it, "History does not crawl, it jumps." Our assumptions grow out of the bell-curve predictability of what he calls "Mediocristan," while our world is really shaped by the wild powerlaw swings of "Extremistan."
In full disclosure, I'm a long admirer of Taleb's work and a few of my comments on drafts found their way into the book. I, too, look at the world through the powerlaw lens, and I too find that it reveals how many of our assumptions are wrong. But Taleb takes this to a new level with a delightful romp through history, economics, and the frailties of human nature. --Chris Anderson
Book Description
A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives.
Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don’t know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the “impossible.”
For years, Taleb has studied how we fool ourselves into thinking we know more than we actually do. We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to surprise us and shape our world. Now, in this revelatory book, Taleb explains everything we know about what we don’t know. He offers surprisingly simple tricks for dealing with black swans and benefiting from them.
Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications The Black Swan will change the way you look at the world. Taleb is a vastly entertaining writer, with wit, irreverence, and unusual stories to tell. He has a polymathic command of subjects ranging from cognitive science to business to probability theory. The Black Swan is a landmark book–itself a black swan.
Customer Reviews:
Very thoughtful and enlightening book.......2007-10-02
Taleb has a winner here. The book brings a new slant to what really drives almost every trend. Often the stock traders and predictors of political events are not just wrong, but dead wrong. The reasons for these mistakes and others are explained in entertaining fashion in this book "The Black Swan".
Mr. Taleb Should Stay Away from Theology.......2007-10-01
I found this book highly entertaining. I love the way he writes, his sense humor. But I was very disappointed to see him press repeatedly his complete rejection of the Christian/Judeo understanding of the history of man, the history of God's plan for man's salvation. Ok, he has not the gift of faith. That's ok, perhaps one day. But when I purchase a book on the markets, economics, etc. I expect just that. Not repeated remarks (page 100, 118, etc.) about the non-existence of miracles, how the human race is a mere accident. Why should he be selling this ? Why should I accept his assertions ? On faith ? He's a good man wrapped in a self-contradiction of skeptiscism. I just wish his editor had filtered these things out from the final MS.
Hard to Read.......2007-09-29
I read a chapter of this book. It seemed to me it was trying to make political points (and therefore I found it untrustworthy) also it was just hard to read because I found it boring.
You have to work to separate the wheat from the chaff.......2007-09-24
There's no doubt that Nassim Taleb is a brilliant man. And, there's no doubt that he is frustrated by having to work among people who don't get it. What is there to get? Simply that the quest for certainty -- through mathematics, science or other logic disciplines -- may end up being the very thing which obfuscates the truth; that we end up not being able to see the forest for the trees. I think what he is saying is that there can never be certainty; that there will always be Black Swans...random events.
The reason why I say "I think" that is what he is saying is because there is so much stuff here -- a lot of which is totally irrelevant. He talks about his home town, seemingly just to wax nostaligic, though he may use the vignette to talk -- belaboredly -- about a point. Among the other stuff he presents is: an unusally high regard for the French language; too much - again irrelevant - reference to and back-story about thought leaders, and; palpable disdain for some colleagues in the quantitative field. If you can get through all of that and hold on to the nuggets, though, you will see some fresh thinking. Just his distinction between 2 different systems of thought is worth the work required. There are other presentations which may shift the way you think about things, too. In the end, it's worth reading, but you will have to focus on what's important because he doesn't.
Not recommended.......2007-09-21
The author expressed his strong negative options on statistics, econometrics, some finance professors, some Nobel Prize winners, etc. The whole point is that traditional stat, econ, finance techniques are mostly around the first moment (mean) but the distributions in finance tend to be non-normal and it's the risk that we should pay more attention to. That's a point few people would disagree with. What the author may not have known is that there are stat techniques out there that handle all the issues mentioned - while it's true that there's a lot of room for improvement, it's misleading to say that this is an area ignored by the academics and practitioners. While fractals are recommended, it is not clear how they can be directly applied to the area of investment finance.
There is a 2007 issue in American Statistican dedicated to the debate with the author and is highly recommended.
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