During WWII, the CIA distributed a secret pamphlet called “The Simple Sabotage Field Manual” to citizens sympathetic to the Allies.

It contained instructions on how to weaken their country by reducing workplace productivity.

Here’s some of the things they recommended, like, 80 years ago in war time.

🕵️ Talking frequently and at great length
🕵️ Bringing up irrelevant issues constantly
🕵️ Haggling over precise wording of communications
🕵️ Referring back to matters already decided
🕵️ Worrying excessively about the propriety of decisions

And if people were in managerial positions, this was the advice to them:

🕵️ Misunderstand orders and ask endless questions
🕵️ Assign unimportant jobs first
🕵️ Insist on perfect work for relatively unimportant products
🕵️ Hold conferences when there’s more critical work to be done
🕵️ Create convoluted procedures for issuing instructions

It’s kind of staggering to think that this was CIA advice and yet so much of it is familiar in the modern workplace.

How work happens is almost as important as the work itself.

That’s why our strategy review projects don’t just look at the outputs of digital channels, but the process behind them, the people behind them, when issues like these are getting in the way of great work (obligatory plug – drop us a message if you need help with that).