An employee performs badly on purpose at work they do not want, misreading briefs and botching deliverables, until the manager reassigns the work or drops the request.
An example
Nobody at a management consulting firm wanted to own the migration of its proposal library into a new knowledge system, so the practice leader assigned it to a senior consultant. The first batch came back with half the files mislabeled and the client names in the wrong field. The second batch used last year's template. Each time, the consultant asked the same questions about the tagging scheme. Two peers migrating other practices' libraries had finished with few errors. The consultant's record on client work was excellent, which made the sudden trouble with a spreadsheet hard to believe. The practice leader spent six hours over three weeks re-explaining and checking the work, and the migration deadline for the firm's annual planning slipped. The practice leader came close to handing the job to a junior analyst.
Why it works
Each botched deliverable shows the manager that pressing harder produces more bad work, which drains the value of keeping the assignment with this person. The costs pile up on the manager's side: rework, waiting stakeholders, a boss who notices the slip, and hours of hand-holding. Reassignment becomes the cheaper choice. Output judged without regard to effort, a background that makes the incompetence plausible, and a deadline that makes continued failure unaffordable give it force. It breaks down when work can be checked step by step, peers visibly handle similar work, or the person's record makes the ineptitude implausible.
The thinking behind it
Oliver E. Williamson Oliver Williamson's Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications (1975) rests on two assumptions: rationality is bounded, so contracts and assignments are always incomplete, and some people are opportunistic, seeking self-interest with guile. No assignment can specify every detail of good work, and a person who wants out of a task can exploit the gaps. Breaking the work into checked stages and agreeing reassignment criteria in advance fill in the incomplete contract.
A. Michael Spence A. Michael Spence's Job Market Signaling (1973) starts from observers who cannot see someone's ability directly and must read it from visible actions. Botched deliverables are such actions: they tell the manager the person cannot do this work. The same logic is why the move has a price. The record of weak work stays visible, and reviews and succession decisions will read it the way the manager did.
Warning signs
One owner repeatedly misreads the brief while peers handle comparable assignments cleanly. The same questions recur after they have been answered. The sudden ineptitude does not match the person's record on work they want, and it appears only on unwanted tasks. Deliverables fail in ways that create extra work for the manager.
How to defend yourself
Change the shape of the work so failure becomes visible early. Break the assignment into small stages and check each one before the next begins. Narrow the scope where you can, and agree in advance, in writing, on the criteria that would lead to reassignment, so you are not improvising under a deadline. Compare the results with peers doing similar work, and keep that comparison on file. Say plainly, in a one-to-one, that the quality does not match the person's other work, and ask what is going on. The person is also building a record of weak performance, which reviews and succession decisions will see.
How a leader shuts it down
Use observable sub-deliverables and peer comparisons for routine assignments, so feigned difficulty shows up fast. Distribute unwanted work by a visible rotation, which removes some of the motive. Support managers who document the gap between a person's work on wanted and unwanted tasks.