An executive cultivates a rival's chief of staff, assistant, or longtime deputy as a friend, and gains a view into the rival's inner circle and a channel for planting framings there.
An example
Halfway through choosing between two outside vendors for a late-stage trial, the head of clinical development at a mid-sized drug company noticed she had cooled on the larger one. Over several weeks her chief of staff had mentioned that finance was nervous about its pricing and that the board chair thought it was slow. Neither remark, it turned out, had come from finance or the chair. Her chief of staff had been lunching every other week for a year with the chief commercial officer, who wanted the smaller vendor because it came with a co-marketing deal. Her assistant, it emerged later, had been sharing her calendar with the commercial team and had been nominated for a leadership program the commercial officer sponsored. By then the contract with the smaller vendor was signed.
Why it works
Friendship with the deputy works on the rival's view of the choice. The executive's own positions reach the rival through a trusted inside voice, sounding like the deputy's observation or a general consensus, so they look better. The deputy can mention drawbacks of whatever the rival is leaning toward, which makes it look worse, and raise its political risks, which makes it look costlier. An assistant who shares the rival's schedule gives the executive time to get ahead of decisions. It takes years to set up, needs a confidant who truly sits inside the rival's circle, and is very hard to spot once running.
The thinking behind it
Mark Granovetter Mark Granovetter's The Strength of Weak Ties (1973) shows that acquaintances who connect otherwise separate groups carry information between them. A rival's deputy or assistant befriended across the divide becomes such a bridge, and information flows both ways: the rival's plans out, the executive's framings in. Keeping several direct channels to counterparts defends against it, because no single bridge then carries everything.
Robert B. Cialdini Reciprocity, as Robert Cialdini sets it out in Influence (1984), is the obligation people feel to repay what others give them, including favors they did not ask for. A seat in a leadership program or a sponsor's help, given to a rival's assistant or chief of staff, creates that obligation. Noticing which favors have reached your staff, and from whom, is how the pattern becomes visible.
Sun Tzu (Sunzi) The Art of War, a text of uncertain date traditionally attributed to Sun Tzu, holds that victory depends on foreknowledge from people who know the enemy's situation, and describes converted spies, the enemy's own people turned to one's use. A rival's trusted deputy cultivated by an executive plays a version of that role. The text's attention to such people is a reminder that the defense lies in how access to a leader is designed.
Warning signs
Regular lunches or calls between an executive and a rival's deputy, assistant, or chief of staff have no working reason behind them. Framings that suit the executive start turning up in the rival's thinking, attributed to vague sources such as finance or the board. The executive seems to know the rival's schedule and plans early. The intermediary receives career favors, such as a program seat or a sponsor, from the executive's side, and important items start reaching the rival late or not at all.
How to defend yourself
When a new framing shows up in your thinking or your team's, ask where it came from, and check the claim at its supposed source.
- Keep direct personal channels to the counterparts who matter, so your picture does not depend on one intermediary.
- Compartment what trusted staff see, especially on contested decisions, and rotate who has inner-circle access.
- Notice who on your staff is close to whom, and what favors have come their way.
Avoid treating your own staff as suspects by default. The defense lies in how access is designed: no single person should be able to see and steer everything that reaches you.
How a leader shuts it down
Rotate administrative and chief-of-staff roles on a schedule, and give senior people direct channels to each other. Make career sponsorship of another executive's staff visible, so favors across rival teams show up. Encourage leaders to check secondhand claims before acting on them, especially claims about what finance or the board thinks.