How to sabotage your company like the CIA

Written by Ricky Nave in Business tactics, strategy, and management

In 2008, the U.S. declassified a CIA training manual used for decades to instruct operatives how to sabotage organizations from within. The “Simple Sabotage Field Manual” includes 16 tactics that managers can use to “efficiently” cripple an organization and demoralize its employees.

  1. Whenever possible, refer all matters to committees for “further study and consideration.”  Attempt to make the committees as large as possible – never less than five.
  2. Hold meetings when there is more important work to be done.
  3. Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
  4. Talk as frequently as possible and at great length.
  5. When you talk, illustrate your points by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences.
  6. Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
  7. Insist on doing everything through “channels.”  Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
  8. Advocate “caution”.  Be “reasonable”. Urge your coworkers to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
  9. Apply all regulations to the last letter.
  10. Be worried about the appropriateness of any decision. Raise the question of whether any contemplated action lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.
  11. Train new workers with incomplete instructions.
  12. When scheduling work, always schedule the unimportant tasks first.
  13. Multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions, pay checks, and so on.  See that three people have to approve everything where one would do.
  14. To lower morale and with it, productivity, be pleasant to inefficient workers;  give them undeserved promotions.  Meanwhile hold your efficient workers to higher and higher standards, complaining about things which you don’t complain about for inefficient workers.
  15. Spread disturbing rumors that sound like inside dope.
  16. Create confusion by giving lengthy and incomprehensible explanations when questioned.

If you wish to sabotage, cripple, and demoralize your company as effectively as a CIA agent, implement those 16 tactics within your business as soon as possible.

Ricky Nave

In college, Ricky studied physics & math, won a prestigious research competition hosted by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, started several small businesses including an energy chewing gum business and a computer repair business, and graduated with a thesis in algebraic topology. After graduating, Ricky attended grad school at Duke University in the mathematics PhD program where he worked on quantum algorithms & non-Euclidean geometry models for flexible proteins. He also worked in cybersecurity at Los Alamos during this time before eventually dropping out of grad school to join a startup working on formal semantic modeling for legal documents. Finally, he left that startup to start his own in the finance & crypto space. Now, he helps entrepreneurs pay less capital gains tax.

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