Resistance by enthusiastic literal obedience and apparent stupidity, which is unpunishable because it is indistinguishable from genuine incompetence.
Hasek's novel, published from 1921, follows a soldier whose eager compliance wrecks every order he receives while leaving his superiors no charge to bring. The tactic belongs to those with no power to refuse: a refusal can be punished and a misunderstanding cannot, so incomprehension becomes the safest available form of obstruction.
In practice
- An employee who carries out a bad instruction exactly, having asked three clarifying questions in writing, has built a record.
- A department that cannot be shown to have obstructed anything has also not done the thing.
- Standing
- Closely related to malicious compliance, and distinguished by the performance of idiocy: the Svejk defence is that no offence can be proved because none was intended.
- Subject
- Organizations & Bureaucracy
- Essay
- Why organisations learn, harden and decline