Simple sabotage
Your management practices and processes may be derailing your mission.
“…what we practice at the small scale sets the patterns for the whole system.”
—adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy (2017)
In 1944, the United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS) published a classified manual detailing small, accessible acts of resistance. The Simple Sabotage Field Manual (declassified in 2008) offered simple tactics for average citizens in Axis-occupied territories to disrupt the war effort in the Allies’ favor.
One present-day surprise of the field manual is how closely its recommendations for organizational “sabotage” match standard practice in the nonprofit arts. Section 11, specifically, offers the following simple but effective approaches to disrupt and distract an organization from achieving its goals (and this is word-for-word):
Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
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.
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.
Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
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.
Re-reading this list, I can recall dozens of instances where a nonprofit arts executive, artistic director, board member, funder, or entire conference panel seemed guided by this advice – where the primary saboteur of organizational thriving was the organizational culture, itself.
This isn’t always the case, of course. Many arts organizations craft and sustain more open, abundant, connected, humane, inclusive, and courageous modes of discovery and decision-making (read Emergent Strategy for some ideas, linked below). But for those starting the journey, or looking for red flags in their current practice, the OSS manual to simple sabotage might be a useful place to start (queue the Beastie Boys).
p.s. Hat-tip to Noah Brier and his extremely wonky but compelling conversation with Dan Shipper, which reconnected me to the Simple Sabotage Field Manual.
Sources
brown, adrienne maree. 2017. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. Reprint Edition. AK Press.
Simple Sabotage Field Manual. 1944. Office of Strategic Services.
From the ArtsManaged Field Guide
Function of the Week: People Operations
People Operations involves designing and driving systems and practices that attract, engage, retain, and develop people within the enterprise (also called human resources).
Framework of the Week: Convention
Sociologist Howard Becker defines "convention" as the shared understandings, practices, and norms that members of an arts ecology ("art world") adhere to in order to produce and appreciate art. These conventions encompass everything from technical methods and artistic styles to business practices and social behaviors, enabling coordinated and coherent collaboration among diverse participants in the art world.
This is brilliant. Thank you.