While I think the article is submitted with that kind of irony, in fact that the CIA* just studied what stymied or frustrated any common hierarchy/organization and formalized it into a process.
I resonate with it because I can name persons who, intentionally or not, do these exact actions within our org; I can even name a few I know do it intentionally as they said as such. Their goal isn't to get fired or to cause "real" trouble, but instead to cause frustration without getting in trouble.
There are similar guides, or were anyways, on how to effectively troll/create chaos online; it's not that the authors of the articles are geniuses that created this stuff in a vacuum, they just had a need for such a specific outcome and turns out humans have been doing this ever since we started making hierarchies.
* (or any other intelligence organization across the globe really)
FWIW, the counter to this though is to just ignore such "saboteurs" as much as you can. Most of the time their ability to frustrate relies on consistently being in places where they can frustrate or by participating with persons who are drawn into such distractions.
If you cannot avoid working with them, the same tactics that are disruptive in this manual (documentation, etc), can be used against the saboteur also. Establish documentation procedures that even if only you are using it, you can define time sinks and inefficiencies.
Bend the rules a little and continue projects without the problematic person, finding a replacement that does help, and when you report on the project, document the saboteur not as a problem, but instead that your chosen replacement was an improvement on them.
These workplace saboteurs thrive on creating confusion, chaos, and disruption, and working in channels that aren't easily observable, and most importantly, by exploiting our tendencies towards good faith interpretations in all things (which is what we're taught is correct and polite).
Businesses live by hard numbers and profit.
It's a sometimes tense experience, but discipline and resistance to getting drawn into the saboteurs chaos can and eventually will get the desired results. If the business truly doesn't respond or the saboteur has such sway/pull that their lack of output/efficiency doesn't prompt some action from the business, then truly the business is not one you want to be in.
Quite a few workplace saboteurs have been removed from my workplace doing this (either by threat of firing that resulted in resignation or outright firing). The end result of a few weeks of just practicing brevity in meetings, taking the time to make a chain of documentation for interactions with such persons, and avoiding getting wrapped up into "games" helped a ton. Follow-up emails from conversations the saboteur wants to keep "just in chat" or "just on a quick call" are extremely useful, just a quick high-level summary and suggestion for next steps and a request to update the thread showed a reluctance of these persons to participate (add in little messages like "hey I pinged you in our chat also and didn't get the response either" to just cover your tracks)
I resonate with it because I can name persons who, intentionally or not, do these exact actions within our org; I can even name a few I know do it intentionally as they said as such. Their goal isn't to get fired or to cause "real" trouble, but instead to cause frustration without getting in trouble.
There are similar guides, or were anyways, on how to effectively troll/create chaos online; it's not that the authors of the articles are geniuses that created this stuff in a vacuum, they just had a need for such a specific outcome and turns out humans have been doing this ever since we started making hierarchies.
* (or any other intelligence organization across the globe really)
FWIW, the counter to this though is to just ignore such "saboteurs" as much as you can. Most of the time their ability to frustrate relies on consistently being in places where they can frustrate or by participating with persons who are drawn into such distractions.
If you cannot avoid working with them, the same tactics that are disruptive in this manual (documentation, etc), can be used against the saboteur also. Establish documentation procedures that even if only you are using it, you can define time sinks and inefficiencies.
Bend the rules a little and continue projects without the problematic person, finding a replacement that does help, and when you report on the project, document the saboteur not as a problem, but instead that your chosen replacement was an improvement on them.
These workplace saboteurs thrive on creating confusion, chaos, and disruption, and working in channels that aren't easily observable, and most importantly, by exploiting our tendencies towards good faith interpretations in all things (which is what we're taught is correct and polite).
Businesses live by hard numbers and profit.
It's a sometimes tense experience, but discipline and resistance to getting drawn into the saboteurs chaos can and eventually will get the desired results. If the business truly doesn't respond or the saboteur has such sway/pull that their lack of output/efficiency doesn't prompt some action from the business, then truly the business is not one you want to be in.
Quite a few workplace saboteurs have been removed from my workplace doing this (either by threat of firing that resulted in resignation or outright firing). The end result of a few weeks of just practicing brevity in meetings, taking the time to make a chain of documentation for interactions with such persons, and avoiding getting wrapped up into "games" helped a ton. Follow-up emails from conversations the saboteur wants to keep "just in chat" or "just on a quick call" are extremely useful, just a quick high-level summary and suggestion for next steps and a request to update the thread showed a reluctance of these persons to participate (add in little messages like "hey I pinged you in our chat also and didn't get the response either" to just cover your tracks)