Warning Signs to Watch out

Premise:

In the early part of the 20th Century, the CIA (yes, that CIA) created a manual for its operatives to help teach them the art of sabotage.

One part of the manual was meant specifically to train them to sabotage organizations.

While you may not have someone actively trying to sabotage your organization (or maybe there could be), there might be behaviors that are unintentionally sabotaging your operations.

So, it is a good idea to learn about these behaviors and nip them in the bud if we start seeing them playing out in our teams – intentionally or unintentionally. You can read the entire guide here if you are interested (10-12 mins read).

Some times we learn a lot from what NOT TO DO than what to do. In that tradition, let’s look at what we can learn from the guide.

While the guide was written during a time when businesses used to function differently, I try to list down behaviors that we might still see in a modern workplace:

Sabotaging Organizations and Production:

1. Insist on doing everything through proper “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order 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 experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate patriotic comments.
3. 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.
4. Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
5. Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes and resolutions.
6. Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of advisability of that decision.
7. Advocate caution. Be reasonable and urge your fellow colleagues 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.

Sabotaging managers and supervisors:

1. Demand written orders for everything.
2. Misunderstand orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long email conversations about such orders. Quibble over them when you can and all you can.
3. Do everything possible to delay all communications.
4. Order high quality materials or tools which are hard or too expensive to get. If you dont get them argue about it. Warn that inferior tools or materials will mean inferior work.
5. In making work assignments, always delegate unimportant jobs first. See that the important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers.
6. Insist on perfect work in relatively unimportant products; send back for refinishing those which have the least flaw. Approve other defective parts whose flaws are not visible to the naked eye.
7. When training new workers, give incomplete or misleading instructions.
8. To lower morale, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.
9. Hold meetings when there is critical work to be done.
10. Multiply paper work in plausible ways. Start multiple communication threads.
11. Multiply the number of things your team needs your approval for. See that there are at least three people who need to approve everything where one would do.
12. Be a stickler to all the rules and policies.

Sabotaging as office workers:

1. Make mistakes. Confuse similar names, use wrong addresses.
2. Prolong correspondence.
3. Misfile essential documents.
4. Spread disturbing rumors that sound like inside dope.

Sabotaging as employees:

1. Work slowly.
2. Contrive as many interruptions to your work as you can.
3. Pretend that instructions are hard to understand, and ask to have them repeated more than once.
4. Or pretend that you are particularly anxious to do your work, and pester the foreman with unnecessary questions.
5. 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.
6. Never pass on your skill and experience to a new or less skillful worker.
7. Snarl up administration in every possible way. Share partial information; make mistakes or omit requested information.
8. If possible, join or help organize a group for presenting employee problems to the management. See that the procedures adopted are as inconvenient as possible for the management, involving the presnece of a large number of employees at each presentation.

General devices for lowering morale and creating confusions.

1. Give lengthy and incomprehensible explanations when questioned.
2. Report imaginary risks or danger.
3. Act stupid without getting yourself in trouble.
4. Be as irritable and quarrelsome as possible without getting yourself into trouble.
5. Misunderstand all sorts of regulations.
6. Complain against materials or tools.
7. Treat a specific kind of people coldly.
8. Stop all conversations when they enter a cafe or your room.
9. Cry and sob hysterically at every occasion, specially when being confronted.
10. Boycott all attempts for team building.

In conclusion:

We need to be aware of two dangers:

1. Are we exhibiting any of these behaviors ourselves, as leaders? Why?
2. Do we see anyone on our teams exhibit these behaviors? Why?

Once we have identified if any of these behaviors are playing out in our teams, we need to address them right away. If we have done our job of recruiting the right people and cultivated the right kind of culture in our team, can assume that these behaviors are unintentional and therefore, correctable.

If after multiple rounds of discussion, the behavior persists, we might have to take stronger action.