In any dispute, the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the stakes at issue.
Sayre was a Columbia administrator, and the academic version is often quoted as academic politics being vicious because the stakes are so low. Low stakes remove the discipline that high stakes impose.
In practice
- A parish council debates the churchyard bench across three evenings and passes a £180,000 drainage contract without amendment.
- A board approves the acquisition in ten minutes and spends an hour on the wording of the announcement.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Organizations & Bureaucracy
- Essay
- The folklore of office life