Disclaimer:

Although this guide can aid in your company failure, note that failure cannot be guaranteed. It is possible that an action that should ensure failure, itself fails and the business becomes a success with all the problems that brings; higher taxes, increased investment and share holders falling over each other to get a slice of your cake. Not to mention added problems of people wanting to work for you, desiring pay rises (you might even be forces to take a pay rise yourself), customers wanting your product and you have to expand your manufacturing capacity. Obviously all the things you want to avoid.

Key information

This is not presented in any particular order. This is your first lesson. Keep things complicated to follow.

  • Do not start small and expand at the rate your company is growing. Go big straight away. 
    This has the benefits of stretching your finances beyond your resources, ensures your workforce doesn't have enough work to stop them getting bored (solution to the boredom is provided later, if you haven't left before we get there.)

  • Very important. Cannot stress enough the importance of this next factor. 
    Make sure your company is top heavy, have lots of directors and managers, keep the number of engineers and technicians to a minimum and the hands on workforce barely enough to achieve what is required. 
    This will ensure constant big wages bills, low income and so low tax bill. As a bonus you will be able to have lots of meetings. This takes us to the next point.

  • There is a critical formula for meetings. If:

    N = The number of meetings held per week.
    F = The frequency of a meeting (number of recurrences per week.)
    A = The number of actions given to one meeting participant.
    D = Meeting duration as a percentage of working hours in a week.
    T = Time take to complete an action as a percentage of working hours in a week.
    P = The number of meeting participants.

    Then:
                 N = F(D+AT)/P

    You must ensure that N > 1  otherwise the actions could be completed before the next meeting.
    WARNING: Even if N > 1 some actionees may attempt to cause successful action completion by working extra hours. To reduce this risk, actions should be targeted at salary employees only. This is still not guaranteed as some employees may work extra hours unpaid and so extra actions to prevent successful action completion may be required. One good tactic is after the action is completed tell them “that wasn’t the requested action.” (Avoid putting too much detail down in writing so you have wiggle room.)


  • This is Very important, it is more important than the very important item given earlier. Whatever you do, under no circumstances listen to information provided by experienced employees that work for you. This could be disastrous as success is almost guaranteed as this will have been tried and tested. If they say “wheels are best if they are round” just defuse the situation by saying one of the following, or make up one of your own. Here are some suggestions:

    “I hear what you say but we need solid proof. Go and try...” then add something appropriate, perhaps like “a square”.

    Another good one, works most of the time:
    “Yes, but we need to think out of the box. Go and try...” then add something appropriate, perhaps like “a square”.

    You can also try distraction. Takes some practise but if your management skills are good you will soon master its application, if not just resort to the old favourite “I am your boss, just do as you are told.” So you could try saying:
    “Just because it has been done that way for years doesn’t mean that is the best way to do it. Go and try...” then add something appropriate, perhaps like “a square”.

    If you have to deal with an engineer it may be better to take the time wasting approach. You could go the DoE (Design of Experiments) route:
    “Ok, I hear what you say but would like to check that the round wheel is actually optimised. Please carry out a full factorial DoE and make sure you include, in addition to round of course, octagonal, hexagonal and square. By the way I would like you to include different sizes and colours too.” You can throw in something like “senior management believe the colour is a major factor.” This will make them think you are on their side and trying to help things along.

  • We now come on to the product. Remember there is no need to design it as it will naturally evolve, so just start with something that looks the part. Actually change that, you don’t want it to evolve, because if it evolves it could work. Remember the wheel. The last thing you want is to find that if it is a hexadecagon it works even if not perfectly. So instead hire someone you are confident will design your square wheel for you. However you will have to make sure no else spots anything strange about your special four sided wheel. So give the designer ultimate authority and don’t let anyone question anything. Whatever you do ensure there are no design reviews. Also make sure no school children are allowed to do site visits, they will spot wheel design instantly and children say what they see, you can’t threaten them with losing their jobs as you can your employees, as they don’t know what a job is.

  • Now for manufacture. You will need to setup a manufacturing site which is going to need operators. They could get suspicious when they see your special product. The risk is that they might have worked in a factory making wheels before and might just spot these are not the same. So prepare your story before you hire them so that they are expecting to see your special square wheels and believe that is the way forward. Be careful what you make up, they may know people in the know. One option is an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) these are good, but not sufficient. Your special design story is your best bet. Go with something they cannot disprove. For example you could say “These special square wheels are designed for ultra high speeds. At ultra high speeds only the tips touch the ground so it is like the vehicle is floating on a cushion of air. Very little ground resistance and improved efficiency.” Imply it is environmentally friendly and they won’t ask awkward questions. If they do ask awkward questions, tell them “that is a good question” then divert to answering something else which you are happy to discuss. Job is a good'n.

  • Overcoming bored operators. Remember we mentioned earlier this would be a problem. Mainly because your square wheels don’t work, but that is beside the point. The point is because they “are not working”, which is not the same thing, you cannot sell. This of course means you can save money as you do not need to buy so much material to use to make the wheels. We will cover material costs next. Really easy solution here, create work. Make them build the wheels then when they don’t work, just make them rework them. Tell them it is their fault they are not working, they need to be more careful. Also, find a process stage to blame, Test stage is a good one. That way you can say the wheels are good but the test is not working correctly. You will need to change the process stage you blame from time to time to divert suspicion. Perhaps mould. You can say it is the mould tools. That means it is someone else’s fault not yours and you can justify having nothing to build for weeks on end.

  • Material costs. Do not use good quality material to start with and then do cost-cutting exercises to reduce the cost once you have a good product. The problem with that is once you have a good product you cannot get away from it. No, start with really cheap poor quality materials that will cause the product to fail before it even leaves the factory. You will need to manage the samples you provide for the customers, justify why your wheels do not last as long as the ones they are currently using. Go for something like “These are not fully developed yet and we are using ground breaking technology.” That will keep them quiet for some time. 

  • Efficiency! You don't want to be efficient otherwise you will find your profit margin is too good, resulting in higher taxes, you will get too much product through the line resulting in too many satisfied customers who then want even more of your product. 
    So how do you look good and ensure failure? With skilled management of the line.
    To look good, get automated equipment for the line. Now if you have to show customers around they will be impressed. However, what you do to make sure the line doesn't work is simple... put a spanner in the works. Of course this will need to be the proverbial spanner. This is how to do it. You will be pleased to know it is really easy. Make sure that all the materials you purchase for the line arrive in the wrong media so that they cannot go straight on the the automated equipment. You can go one better by ensuring that the media of the first process kit is not the input media of the second process kit. This ensures that operators will spend most of their time transferring materials and products from one media to another and thus ensure a low efficiency. Easy.

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