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On 17 January 1944, the Office of the Strategic Services of the CIA issued the Simple Sabotage Field Manual. The manual remained classified for decades, becoming declassified in 2008.
The purpose of the manual was to present suggestions for inciting and executing sabotage.
The manual is full of 1940s references such as ‘axis nationals’, the latter no doubt falling victim to many of the manual’s methods.
The manual breaks methods down into the following categories:
What’s striking about this section of the manual is that it sounds like a lot of the dated management practices that plague large organisations today. These practices continue to sabotage their efforts when it comes to creating an environment where stuff gets done, people are motivated to go to work and the organisation can innovate at the pace required to keep up with change.
Find below some excerpts from the manual insofar as organisational interference is concerned and examples of how this shows up in many large organisations today.
In the immortal words of the one and only George Costanza, companies would be well served to “do the opposite” of whatever the manual suggests.
For the full Sabotage Manual head over to this link.
For more content like this head over to www.collectivecampus.io/blog
Steve Glaveski is on a mission to unlock your potential to do your best work and live your best life. He is the founder of innovation accelerator, Collective Campus, author of several books, including Employee to Entrepreneur and Time Rich, and productivity contributor for Harvard Business Review. He’s a chronic autodidact and is into everything from 80s metal and high-intensity workouts to attempting to surf and hold a warrior three pose.