How Businesses Sabotage Themselves: Lessons from a 1944 CIA Manual
During World War II, the OSS (precursor to the CIA) released the “Simple Sabotage Field Manual”—a handbook for disrupting enemy organisations from within. The shocking part? Much of it reads like a modern business playbook: excessive committees, slow decision-making, perfectionism on unimportant tasks, and endless meetings.
In this episode, we unpack the uncanny overlap between sabotage tactics and today’s workplace behaviours, why they persist even with good intentions, and how leaders can spot and dismantle them before they derail performance.
It’s a reminder that agility isn’t about speed — it’s about removing the hidden habits of sabotage baked into our ways of working.
--> View the associated post on Cultivated website - https://www.cultivatedmanagement.com/we-are-sabotaging-our-own-workplaces/
🤝 Support Cultivated Management
In this episode, we unpack the uncanny overlap between sabotage tactics and today’s workplace behaviours, why they persist even with good intentions, and how leaders can spot and dismantle them before they derail performance.
It’s a reminder that agility isn’t about speed — it’s about removing the hidden habits of sabotage baked into our ways of working.
--> View the associated post on Cultivated website - https://www.cultivatedmanagement.com/we-are-sabotaging-our-own-workplaces/
🤝 Support Cultivated Management
This podcast is a labour of love and will always be free, but it's not free to create it - if you’d like to support my work:
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📸 Check out YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@creativesoulprojects
🏢 Work with me
✉️ Subscribe to the Meeting Notes newsletter: https://www.cultivatedmanagement.com/newsletter/
📸 Follow me on Instagram: https://instagram.com/cultivated.work
🎵 Follow me on TikTok : https://www.tiktok.com/@cultivated.work
👉 Connect on LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertlambert/
📸 Check out YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@creativesoulprojects
Creators and Guests

Host
Rob Lambert
I help leaders turn communication into their greatest leadership tool—to build creative, agile, and human-centred workplaces. Through books, courses, consulting and coaching, I guide leaders and managers in using communication to unlock clarity, creativity, and better business results.
