> Men still loyal to the governor of Cuba planned to seize a ship and escape to Cuba, but Cortés moved swiftly to squash their plans. Two leaders were condemned to be hanged; two were lashed, and one had his foot mutilated. To make sure such a mutiny did not happen again, he decided to scuttle his ships.
> There is a popular misconception that the ships were burned rather than sunk. This misconception has been attributed to the reference made by Cervantes de Salazár in 1546, as to Cortés burning his ships. This may have also come from a mis-translation of the version of the story written in Latin.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_the_Azte...
"scuttle the ships" is as equally alliterative as "burn the boats"
Edit: it’s also not a credible threat in a fungible labor market.
In business, to prevent an analogous situation, you need some way to prohibit people from quitting the company in the face of poor morale. How does one do that ethically?
Instead, think about the nature of the 'distraction' and find a tactic that works for that. Maybe that means prohibiting the CEO trying to go fundraising until X target is met?