The CIA guide to sabotaging companies.

Story.

Years ago, I came across the Simple Sabotage Field Manual. It was created during the Second World War by the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor of the CIA.

The manual was written for ordinary citizens in occupied territories. You did not need explosives or specialist training. You could damage an organisation simply by doing your job badly, slowing other people down and making every decision more difficult.

It sounds like history until you read the examples.

The manual.

The instructions are painfully practical:

• Make administrative processes as difficult as possible.
• Fill in forms illegibly so they have to be completed again.
• Make mistakes or leave out important information.
• Ask unnecessary questions.
• Do poor work and blame your tools.
• Never pass your skills and experience on to someone else.
• Turn complaints into procedures that involve many people, multiple meetings and problems that do not really exist.

None of this looks spectacular. That is precisely why it works. A delay here, an extra meeting there, a missing piece of information. Each action is small enough to look innocent. Together, they slowly stop an organisation from working.

“Snarl up administration in every possible way.”

Sabotage can look professional.

The manual is funny because it is so recognisable. The saboteur does not have to behave like a villain. They can look careful, thorough and responsible.

Another review. Another person who needs to approve. Another meeting to prepare the meeting. Another question that has already been answered. Another process created because nobody wants to make the decision.

Many organisations do not need an enemy to slow them down. Their habits do the work.

That is the uncomfortable lesson in the manual. Dysfunction is rarely one dramatic act. It is a collection of reasonable-looking behaviours that make good work unnecessarily difficult.

Reverse the question.

The manual inspired two workshop structures I use with teams: sabotaging colleagues and sabotaging customers.

Instead of asking people how to improve collaboration or customer experience, ask them how they would destroy it.

How would we make our colleagues’ lives miserable? How would we make sure customers never came back? How could we slow this project down while still appearing busy?

The answers arrive quickly. They are often funny. Then the room becomes quieter, because people recognise things they already do.

That is the value of reversal. A vague ambition such as “collaborate better” becomes a list of observable behaviours. Once the sabotage is visible, you can do the opposite.

Try it.

Ask your team one question:

If we wanted this project to fail slowly while looking completely responsible, what would we do?

Make a list. Mark the behaviours that already happen. Pick one and stop doing it this week.

Source: The Art of Simple Sabotage, CIA and the 1944 Simple Sabotage Field Manual, published by the Office of Strategic Services. Booklet made with Midjourney.