An accessible book that provides a good layman's vocabulary for discussing the strengths and weaknesses of both centralized and decentralized organizations. The authors do a good job, also, in identifying the components that make up a successful decentralized, "starfish" organization. Numerous examples in each chapter help to make the ideas concrete and memorable. ( )

One of the most stimulating, encouraging, refreshing books I've read in years! Anyone who's fed up with leadership theory (or ought to be) can profit from reading this. And anyone who can appreciate chaos, creativity and decentralization will absolutely love it! ( )

Easy reading and enjoyable. This page turner brings a very good and new analogy to management, spiders and starfish for centralized and decentralized organizations. The power of decentralization is brought forward with good examples, but I found it a little shallow. You end the book feeling there's so much more to the theme and the book doesn't touch most of it. That said I still recommend reading it. ( )

Mildly interesting. It's been compared to The Tipping Point, but I didn't have any big "aha" moments like I did with The Tipping Point. They gave lots of examples of successful decentralized organizations. And they did try to summarize the qualities those successful groups had. But that part was pretty short--I wanted more of that. I didn't get a lot out of the book that I feel like I can apply in real life. Whereas The Tipping Point helped me to start making connections about how to create tipping points for things I care about. If you're looking for practical advice on how to encourage a decentralized community feel in an organization, this book doesn't have much to offer. ( )

This book is awesome. I think they are coming out with another book in 2008. The chapter on the hybrid organization was especially helpful and added a well rounded dimension to the book. ( )

This book totally rocks my world! ( )