Selected excerpts from The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations:
Almost every decentralized organization that has made it big was launched from a preexisting platform. [p.97]
Here's what broke Apache society: the Americans gave the Nant'ans cattle. It was that simple. Once the Nant'ans had possession of a scarce resource -- cows -- their power shifted fomr symbolic to material. Where previously, the Nant'ans had led by example, now they could reward and punish tribe members by giving and withholding this resource. [p.152]
Once people gain a right to property, be it cows or book royalties, they quickly seek out a centralized system to protect their interests. It's why we want our banks to be centralized. We want control, we want structure, we want reporting when it comes to our money. [p.153]
[According to Drucker:] "The Confucian concept, which the West shares, assumes that the purpose of learning is to qualify oneself for a new, different, and bigger job...within a certain period of time the student reaches a plateau of proficiency, where he then stays forever. The Japanese concept may be called the 'Zen approach.' The prupose of learning is self-improvement. It qualifies a man to do his present task with continually wider vision, continually increasing competence, and continually rising demands on himself." [p.186]
As it turns out, this was not the case with Japanese business. However, it is an admirable way to live.
