5 ‘Dirty Tricks’ Common in Campus Administration
5 ‘Dirty Tricks’ Common in Campus Administration
5 ‘Dirty Tricks’ Common in Campus Administration
By Allison M. Vaillancourt
January 14, 2020
Summary
An important meeting to discuss critical funding was rescheduled at the last minute and then canceled again.
During a large meeting, when someone asked a question about a potential reorganization, a senior administrator replied, "I'm not going to answer that because I want you to enjoy the holidays.
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Let's meet tomorrow morning, and I can help you get it in better shape for this week's meeting.
They schedule a meeting and then cancel it at the last minute, perhaps even after you have traveled to the meeting spot.
Then they reschedule the meeting and cancel it again.
This ploy can produce even more anxiety when the person you are supposed to be meeting with says something like, "I'm so sorry we weren't able to meet this week.
I have some serious concerns I need to talk to you about" - and then abruptly cancels the next meeting, too.
The Management Corner: Are You Acting With 'Integrity' or Just Sabotaging Yourself? 10 Ways to Better Manage Your Meetings Are We Too Captivated by Charisma in Hiring? In a section of the manual on "general interference with organizations," the tactics for disrupting foreign governments look eerily familiar to those many of us see in the academic workplace today: Never permit shortcuts.
"Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to reopen the question of the advisability of that decision.
Dirty Trick No. 1: "Accidentally" make a colleague look bad.
Dirty Trick No. 2: Push a target off a "glass cliff."
Dirty Trick No. 3: Go silent.
Dirty Trick No. 4: Sow seeds of doubt.
Dirty Trick No. 5: Slow things down.
Reference
Vaillancourt, A. M. (2020, January 14). 5 'Dirty Tricks' Common in Campus Administration. Retrieved January 17, 2020, from https://www.chronicle.com/article/5-Dirty-Tricks-Common-in/247830