How Sincere Leaders Sabotage Their Organizations
You are engaged in harmful behaviors that don’t serve you or your organization well. “I meant well,” points to sincere behaviors that backfired.
Success is doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t.
The CIA declassified the “Simple Sabotage Field Manual” in the 70’s. Page 29 reads like a how-to for succeeding in fear-filled organizations. Effective saboteurs look like they’re doing the right thing.
The most dangerous wrong is the one that feels right.
8 sabotage techniques that could be “good” leadership:
- Sabotage by obedience. Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
- Sabotage by speech. Talk as frequently as possible and at great length.
- Sabotage by committee. When possible, refer all matters to committee, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committee as large as possible – never smaller than five.
- Sabotage by irrelevant issues. Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
- Sabotage by haggling. Haggle over the precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
- Sabotage by reopening decisions. Refer back to matters decided at the last meeting and question the advisability of that decision.
- Sabotage by excessive caution. Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassment or difficulties later on.
- Sabotage by is-it-really-our-call? Be worried about the propriety of any decision – raise the question whether any action lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with some policy of a higher echelon.
These behaviors could be useful. That’s what makes them dangerous.
Sincere passion is frustrating apart from effective execution. Leadership development is aligning sincere passion with effective behavior.
*This post is based on the book, “Simple Sabotage” by Robert M. Galford, Bob Frisch, & Cary Greene. It’s a great read. Buy it on Amazon.
What “good” behaviors could be harmful to organizations?
Dan your list of Sabotage tactics is great! It reminded me of how some people negotiate in deals to try to get an advantage. As a corporate CFO, I often had to sell businesses to raise cash. The most difficult buyers were Private Equity firms. They are made of of the brightest of former Investment Bankers and are often Lawyers as well. The Private Equity firms often wear down their corporate counterparts in negotiations by:
1. Irrelevant Issues – arguing for weeks about a small issue in a huge deal
2. Haggling – spending days and weeks on certain contract sections like environmental issues
3, Reopening Issues- you think you are done with one issue and it reappears in a new form
4. Using extreme Caution- every possible issue or liability is beaten to death
These tactics can often wear out their opponent in a deal and get them a financial advantage. Maybe some of the people I had to deal with were former FBI as well as bankers and lawyers!
Brad
Brad James
Thanks Brad. It’s great that you bring your experience into this post. I have the same response to these techniques as you mention. They wear me down. Perhaps worse, tolerance of these behaviors is frustrating and frustration is exhausting, after awhile.
Just a note. The 8 sabotage techniques were originally in a classified document. They aren’t mine. The authors of “Simple Sabotage” pointed them out. (I just wanted to be clear.)
This is good.
~DWT
Thanks Dwayne.
I’d rather you took the ‘sincere’ out and put in ‘8 steps to abdicating responsibility’. I find the 8 sabotage points are used by ‘managers’ who do not want to be responsible for leadership. They ‘manage’ the problem away by ‘inaction’ and ‘deferral’ and ultimately abdicate responsibiity. Part of what makes someone a leader is making decisions that move forward. Hopefully that decision is derived with input from direct reports.
Thanks Brian. The abdication angle is definitely one side of this conversation. Thanks for bringing it up.
Too much sharing, caring, analysis that parallize the situation,
Thanks Seeker. Absolutely. Let’s just pull the trigger.
4-5-6 I have personally seen in action, causing to table very important issues that to this day still are costly and frustrating. This can be seen as kicking the can down the road to avoid among hard but necessary decisions.
Avoid making typo sorry
Dear Dan,
A very good post Dan. The question is even more powerful- What “good” behaviors could be harmful to organizations? Trying to be good to everyone itself is harmful to the organisations. Any one who falls in this category is not concerned about the organisation. He or she is more concerned about its security and survival in the system. This happens because the person does not have much competence and also fearful about its future. Such people engage into all kind of tricks and shortcuts. Their strategy is very silent and focussed. They behave in such a way to strengthen their circle of influence. In other words, they have certain kind of people who have similar interest. They act as shield and provide support to person who wants to keep everyone happy.
Such people are easy to identify. They do not take any responsibility. In fact they appear in such a way to handle major responsibility, but they do not. They believe in finding faults with others. The reason is clear. By doing this, they can put someone down and enjoy their power. Such people are more likely to stay longer in the organisation. This happens generally in shaky culture where leaders are fearful. Making processes clear and proper execution could be better solution to such problems. One can also make survey to find out popularity of the person and reasons for it. Reasons can provide much insight about the person. This is enough to nail down the person.
“…Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions…”
I’ve seen the results of using short cuts and ignoring channels. It can be fine in a low-risk/low litigation environment. But when things go wrong, among the first things investigators/auditors/inspectors will say is “where is the evidence that procedure was followed?” If you haven’t followed proper procedures and someone is injured or there’s a legal investigation, they will hang you out to dry.
Sir with your permission (and credit given) I would to use the 1-8 portion of your post today. I would like to use it as part of a homework assignment for the leadership academy that I am in. It will be internal and not shared beyond our class (50 students). Thank you.
Hi Walt. Please feel free to use the points. The CIA has released them for public use. Please reference the book “Simple Sabotage.” That’s where I saw them for the first time.
Great podcast on The Meeting Killers: The Naysayers
https://www.manager-tools.com/2012/07/how-handle-meeting-killers-naysayer
So what sort of tactics are useful in combating this type of sabotage? I’m recognizing some of these as behaviors that have caused me great frustration in trying to get things done, but haven’t been sure how to stop it.
Listen to the podcast I linked above. Lots of good stuff in there and very behaviorally based.
Check out the podcast above. Very informative and behaviorally based tips on how to combat it.
Another issue is embedded behaviors from presumed barriers. We institutionalize “also done this way” creating a group think behavior.
My all-time favorite is satisfying requirements just to satisfy them. The ole “check-box” activity. When organizations do things just to do them, it detracts from the very intent and purpose. The ebb and tide of importance placed on a check-box activity is directly reflective on how smoothly things are going. If something derogatory happens, everyone gets up in arms, they demand answers, point fingers, assign culpability, do it correctly for awhile, repeat. Sad, but it is reality.