On sabotage

It's been a while since I posted anything funny here. Let me know if this counts as funny.

Some years ago, the CIA declassified a document published by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) back during World War Two. The document was called Simple Sabotage Field Manual (Strategic Services Field Manual No.3), and it was written to support our allies trapped behind enemy lines as they tried to disrupt Axis war-fighting capability and Axis society generally. It discusses motivation, timing, and tools, and then gives a lot of specific recommendations. You can download a copy of the document from here (or here).

What could be funny about this, you ask? Well, the book got the attention of management consultants and other business excellence experts, because there is a section on how to sabotage "organizations and production." And the advice in that section just sounds so ... normal! 

Here are just a few highlights:

• Organizations and Conferences
• Insist on doing everything through "channels." Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
• When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committees as large as possible- never less than five.
• Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
• Managers and Supervisors
• Don't order new working materials until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted, so that .the slightest delay in filling your order will mean a shutdown.
• Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.  
• Multiply paper work in plausible ways. Start duplicate files.
• Apply all regulations to the last letter.
• Office Workers
• Misfile essential documents.
• Tell important callers the boss is busy or talking on another telephone.
• Spread disturbing rumors that sound like inside dope.
• Never pass on your skill and experience to a new or less skillful worker.

The list goes on and on. And, as I say, the actions mostly sound like normal human clumsiness, short-sightedness, officiousness, and inefficiency. I've seen some of these measures with my own eyes, and I bet everyone I know can say the same thing—not always and not everywhere, but at some jobs, from some people, at some times.

The thing to remember is that while you or I might call this inefficiency, the OSS called it sabotage! When our organizations stumble through the day allowing these things to go on, we are in fact sabotaging ourselves. Now, in spite of all that, most of us get through the day intact anyway. Most of our organizations live to do business again tomorrow. We don't shut ourselves down. 

But think how amazing our performance would look if we didn't sabotage ourselves!  

If you have time for a longer-form discussion, Kyle Chambers and Caleb Adcock from Texas Quality Assurance chatted about this very topic in two back-to-back podcasts back in early March. The first is half an hour, and the second is just about 45 minutes. As always, they discuss the issues with their trademark humor and pragmatism.