Fatcontroller

I stumbled on the “Simple Sabotage field manual” from the US Office of Strategic Services from 1944 which has recently been declassified. It’s amazing to see how many of the techniques for sabotaging organisations have almost become institutionalised. Recognise any saboteurs in your organisation?!

extract follows:

“General interference with organisations and production - Organisations and conferences

1. Insist on doing everything through “channels”. Never permit short cuts to be taken to expedite decisions
2. Make “speeches”. Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experience….
3. When possible refer all actions to committees for “further study and consideration”Attempt to make the committees as large as possible. Never less than five
4. Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible
5. Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions
6. Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to reopen the question of the advisability of that decision
7. Advocate “caution”. Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow conferees to be reasonable and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on
8. Be worried about the propriety of any decision – raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon
9. Demand written orders
10. “Misunderstand” orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can”