Learn English – commonly used phrase for something being easier with niceness rather than by being forceful

There exists a term malicious obedience or malicious compliance, and I'm guessing that you're thinking of one of those; but most users of that term (in either variant) use it somewhat differently from what you describe. This page, for example, is typical: it says that malicious obedience is "when people set their boss up to fail by doing exactly as he or she says even though they know in their hearts that their actions are incorrect or not optimal." So in your case, that would be if Ralph follows the rule because he knows that it's a bad one that hurts the company.

Practicing strategic incompetence

This often involves intentionally doing things poorly or incorrectly so as to have unwanted responsibility taken away, but a more subtle form is to plan for so long that failure comes as a natural outcome.

For example, if you really don't want to have the responsibility for planning office parties, you could start talking about your plans for decorating with orange and yellow teddy bears, serving anchovy pizza with no sauce (one large per person, right?), and entertaining with live organ or polka music. Plus everyone will have to dress as a person from history and also go by the name of an animal (Aardvark and Lemur, please come help me carry these 172 pizzas!).