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Table of Contents

1. Opening Salvo

2. Did You See This?

3. The Plug

Opening Salvo

On Monday morning, I saw a post about this government doc that stopped me mid-scroll: The Simple Sabotage Field Manual, written in 1944 by the Office of Strategic Services. Its purpose was to help ordinary citizens in enemy territories disrupt operations quietly, not through violence, but by clogging systems.

The instructions are disturbingly familiar:

1. “Insist on doing everything through ‘channels.’ Never permit shortcuts to be taken.”

2. “When possible, refer all matters to committees, for further study and consideration.”

3. “Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.”

What once qualified as covert sabotage now reads like a Tuesday.

Many leaders unintentionally run their organizations using the same playbook. They drown decisions in process, equate control with quality, and treat urgency as proof of leadership. The outcome is predictable: paralyzed teams, lost time, and people so entangled in approval loops that progress feels like insubordination.

The most dangerous part is that it looks responsible. Endless documentation, multiple checkpoints, and routine meetings signal discipline, yet they quietly destroy execution.

Leadership self-sabotage rarely announces itself. It hides behind professionalism, consensus, and “best practice.” Every delayed decision drains capacity and compounds erosion over time.

Leaders who want to fix it must start with a simple question: What am I doing to make my organization easier to navigate?

Systems designed for safety eventually become systems of stagnation if they are never recalibrated. The OSS may have written a manual to undermine enemy operations, but modern organizations seem to be following it without needing a war.

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Did You See This?

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The Plug

This newsletter is brought to you by AstutEdge, a performance consultancy that helps organizations execute strategy by fixing misalignment in people, systems, and structure.

We work with leadership teams that want to turn strategic intent into measurable execution, by aligning operating rhythms, decision accountability, and leadership capacity with the metrics that matter most.

How We Help:

• Expose Friction: Surface the hidden work, duplicate effort, and slow decision paths that quietly stall execution.

• Realign Operating Rhythms: Redesign meeting and decision cadences so priorities move faster and accountability sticks.

• Build Leadership Capacity: Strengthen how leaders make, communicate, and cascade decisions across teams.

• Clarify Ownership: Define decision accountability to reduce noise, sharpen focus, and eliminate rework.

• Engineer Performance Systems: Connect performance metrics to real outcomes, not paperwork.

• Reinforce Organizational Health: Align people, systems, and structure so performance scales without burnout.

If your organization, or a partner organization, needs to move strategy from “planned” to “proven,” let’s talk.

Share this newsletter with leaders who feel the drag of misalignment, or visit astutedge.com to see how we help organizations execute faster, cleaner, and with greater impact.