Sabotage yourself…..

In 1944, near the end of World War II, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which was the forerunner to
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), released a field guide called the Simple Sabotage Field Manual
which has since been declassified. The purpose of the manual was to incite rebellious citizens in
occupied countries. The manual gave them suggestions for executing sabotage that would weaken their
countries by reducing productivity in the workplace and causing national embarrassment and
inconveniences. The tactics were meant to undermine organizations from within and were more than
malicious mischief consisting of acts whose results would be detrimental to the country.
The manual proffered that citizen saboteurs did not require specialized training, tools, or equipment. It
was to be executed by the ordinary citizen who may or may not act individually and without the
necessity for active connection with an organized group. It was to be undertaken in such a way as to
involve a minimum danger of injury, detection, and reprisal. The actions encouraged devious talent for
sowing chaos that only an intelligence agency could properly master.
Citizen saboteurs were encouraged to try and commit acts for which large numbers of people could be
held responsible thus making it impossible to fire them all. The weapons of the sabotage were often
objects to which the citizen saboteur used in his daily work and also had inconspicuous access to in
everyday life. This field manual offered specific suggestions for wreaking havoc with buildings,
manufacturing, production, agriculture, railways, communications, and electrical power, which when
damaged presented a large handicap to the country.

To get a sense of how timeless the Simple Sabotage Field Manual is, allow me to cite a few examples of
the suggestions it contained. You will probably laugh ruefully, then perhaps shudder a little as you
recognize just how much you resonate with the kind of dysfunctional mess the OSS meticulously
planned during World War II.

General Interference – insist on doing everything through channels to delay decisions; make speeches as
frequently as possible and at great length and illustrate your points by long anecdotes and accounts of
personal experiences; as often as possible refer all matters to committees for further deliberations and
consideration and ensure that the committees are as large as possible – never less than five; raise
irrelevant issues as frequently as possible; haggle over precise wordings of communications and
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 by urging your colleagues to be reasonable and
avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on; and raise questions on the
propriety of any decision on whether any action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the
group or organization, or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.
Managers – demand written orders; engage in long correspondence about such orders and quibble over
them when you can; do everything possible to delay the delivery of such orders; don’t order new
working supplies until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted so that the slightest delay in
filling your order will mean a shutdown; always assign the unimportant jobs first and ensure that
important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers; hold conferences when there is more critical work to
be done; multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions and ensure that at least
three people have to approve everything where one would do.
Employees – work slowly, very slowly and devise ways to increase the number of movements necessary
on your job; inform important callers that the boss is busy or unavailable; contrive as many interruptions
to your work as you can; do shoddy work and then blame it on bad tools or equipment; forget your tools
so that you will have to go back for them; snarl up administrative tasks in every possible way by filling
out forms illegibly or with mistakes so that they will have to be redone; and never pass on your tacit
knowledge and experience to a new or less skillful worker.

Does that sound familiar?