Competing for a rival's strongest deputies with better offers, one at a time, leaves the rival unable to deliver at the old level and shifts the balance between the two leaders.
Borderline: whether this move is justified depends on the situation, and only the person in it can judge.
An example
Competing with the head of R&D for the same budget and, eventually, the same promotion, the head of the commercial organization at a surgical device maker also had real openings: a market access director role and a launch program that needed a technical lead. Over eighteen months he hired three of R&D's directors, each through the posted process, each for a larger role and more pay, and each told their manager before accepting. He said nothing to any of them about R&D's prospects. As her bench thinned, the R&D head's milestones began to slip, and at the quarterly review he asked whether R&D had the depth it needed. That fall the company merged the two organizations under him. Two of the three directors were promoted within a year.
Why it works
Most of a leader's value lies in what their team can execute. Strip the deputies and keeping the leader looks worse: decks arrive late, programs miss commitments, peers notice. Keeping them becomes costlier: remaining staff burn out, recruiting slips, senior leaders cover the gaps. Removing the leader becomes easy, since no team remains to object, and departures come easily too, through sponsorship and better offers. It depends on influence over personnel moves, a leader who leans heavily on lieutenants, an organization in flux, and a human resources function that treats each departure as an individual decision.
The thinking behind it
Jeffrey Pfeffer Pfeffer and Salancik's The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective (1978) holds that power goes to whoever controls resources others depend on. A leader depends on capable lieutenants to deliver, so the rival who attracts those lieutenants shifts the dependence, and the leader's power falls with each move. Rebuilding the bench faster than it erodes reduces the dependence first.
Sun Tzu (Sunzi) The Art of War, of uncertain date and traditionally attributed to Sun Tzu, holds that the best strategy breaks the opponent's resistance without fighting, by defeating their plans and alliances before battle. Recruiting a rival's deputies is that kind of win: no case is ever argued against the rival, and by the time the two organizations are compared, the outcome is settled.
When it fits
Competition between two leaders is the setting, when you have real openings, budget, and growth to offer and the rival's best people have ambitions their current roles do not meet. It works best in growing or reorganizing organizations where moves are normal.
How to use it well
Compete on the offer.
- Post the roles and use the normal internal process, so every move is visible and fair.
- Make offers that are genuinely better: scope, pay, growth.
- Encourage each person to tell their manager before accepting.
- Keep your conversations with candidates about the role you are offering, and leave their current manager out of them.
- Develop the people you hire, so the move is good for them as well as for you.
When the two organizations are compared, let the results make the case.
What it costs and where it backfires
Raiding has a price: the rival can rebuild faster than you hire away, talk to their people about growth before you do, or show a sponsor the pattern, and a reputation for raiding makes peers guard their teams against you. Leaders who lose people to you may refuse to cooperate later. Your conduct toward the rival's team is the line. Telling people their manager will hold them back, freezing the rival's requisitions through your influence, or spreading doubt about the rival moves into sabotage and false statements.
When it is used on you
Track your lieutenants' departures over time and where they land. Talk with your strongest people about their growth before someone else does, rebuild the bench faster than it erodes, and show the pattern, as data, to a sponsor with authority over personnel moves.