In Polish there's a word Kunktatorstwo – trying to achieve own goals through delaying action, e.g. by making the opponent run out of time, making them tire out from keeping their defenses up, or believably failing to follow through an obligation, upon which they depended.
For example, you really hate your boss, who is the owner of the company and you want to destroy him even at cost of your own job (but not at cost of civil lawsuit for sabotaging the work). He's got a critical contract with a strict deadline, not meeting which would destroy his company. You perform your work in such a way that the deadline won't be met, but still your procrastination won't be provable – you perform at lowest still acceptable speed, you try solutions which you know are bound to fail (but you can claim you didn't and needed to test them), you waste time on analyses, meetings, questions, you perform a very thorough and solid (but lengthy) work where a much faster, simpler one would suffice, and generally secretly sabotage it in such a way that the final product would be at least acceptable if not for missing the deadline.
Unlike plain procrastination, which is usually subconscious, and undesired by the procrastinator, Kunktatorstwo is purposeful and malicious – it's not you who is being harmed by the delay.
Is there an english word or phrase to describe this kind of activity?
(both verbs and nouns are okay).
Best Answer
I believe that strategy would generally be referred to as "delaying tactics".
Some comments mentioned "running out the clock", which is a sports metaphor from timed sports. I've heard it used as a metaphor in other arenas, although its most applicable when you know exactly how long you need to delay.
In the work arena specifically, there is a tactic called work-to-rule, where the employee gums up the works by following every single workplace rule to the letter.