Erstellt am: 28. 12. 2015 - 11:59 Uhr

Today's Webtip: Simple Sabotage

Mismanagement and bureaucratic blundering as a subtle act of war.

Have you ever been amazed at the institutionalised acts of stupidity large organisations tend to display? Been boondoggled by red-tape that just seems to exist in order to hinder progress?

Amazed by incompetent managers and buzzword fanatics?

That supposed stupidity might not have been run of the mill institutional incompetence. It might have been sabotage.

Seriously. The forerunner to the CIA once created a training manual called the "Simple Sabotage Field Manual". Some of the things they describe will sound eerily familiar to most anyone who has ever worked a normal job. Examples?

Ok.

Organizations and Conferences

• Insist on doing everything through “channels”. Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
• Make “speeches”. Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences.
• When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration”. Attempt to make the committee as large as possible — never less than five.
• Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
• Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
• Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
• Advocate “caution”. Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.

Managers

• In making work assignments, always sign out the unimportant jobs first. See that important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers.
• Insist on perfect work in relatively unimportant products; send back for refinishing those which have the least flaw.
• To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions.
• Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.
• Multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions, pay checks, and so on. See that three people have to approve everything where one would do.

Employees

• Work slowly.
• Contrive as many interruptions to your work as you can.
• Do your work poorly and blame it on bad tools, machinery, or equipment. Complain that these things are preventing you from doing your job right.
• Never pass on your skill and experience to a new or less skillful worker.

You can read more about it at www.openculture.com or just grab the document from the CIA itself.