Nice bit of point-scoring at PMQ’s when David Cameron revealed the favourite book of David Muir, new Number 10 strategist, is: “The Unstoppable Power Of Leaderless Organisations”.

The full name of the book appears to be

The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations (Hardcover)  

By the sound of it, the book’s lessons seem hard to reconcile with Gordon Brown’s “Stalinist” tendencies to control everything himself.

Here is the review by Amazon.co.uk.

“His work provides an understanding of 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 it’s 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.

“Some organisations are just as decentralised as starfish, with no control centre or grand strategy. Think of craigslist and the original Napster, run totally by their own customers. Or Alcoholics Anonymous, which has thrived for decades as a loose network of small groups. Or even al Qaeda, which is so hard to destroy because its cells function independently.

“The Starfish and the Spider”, based on groundbreaking research into decentralised organisations, proves that this type of leadership is primed to change the world. Major companies like eBay, IBM, Sun, and GE are starting to decentralise, with great results. Decentralisation isn’t easy for people who are used to the classic chain of commence organisation. But as readers will learn through this book’s fascinating stories - ranging from the music business to geopolitics - it can be a very dangerous trend to ignore.

March 19th, 2008 in Conservatives, Gordon Brown, Labour | Permalink