When you can't get them, steal them

Were you tempted to steal something after trying to get it through rightful means? Is it a disturbing question? From childhood, we are taught not to steal, not to lie, not to cause harm to other and a whole lot of other "not to"s. Do we forget all these "not to"s when we grow up? It is the innocent-at-first-glance kind of thievery that interests me. Especially these seemingly innocent ones relates to work place. There is another broad term assigned to this kind of thievery. Poaching.

With rising demand in reducing the operating costs, it is beneficial to change for a cheaper and newer horse in the middle of the race. Familiarity breeds contempt. Sometimes, it is referred to status-quo. Even in a relationship, we are advised to surprise our partner constantly. So you can imagine the life of drudgery when you turn up at work to see the same people dealing with the same problems. In such a case, the problems cannot be changed. The faces associated with dealing with the problems may be changed. In a certain sense, you have thwarted the status-quo. Now you only have to hope this does not become the new status-quo!

At the work place, this results in changing the supplier or the vendor. But however mature the processes are, there are still some members who have gained enough knowledge and confidence of everyone. When the new supplier/vendor comes in, there isn't time to extract the knowledge from these key team members. If you can't extract the knowledge, the newcomer is going to be in trouble. So what do they do? The new supplier/vendor poaches critical team members from the old supplier/vendor.

Recently, my friend's team was involved in such a transition. His team has been involved in the knowledge transfer at his office. His office was the chosen location for this exchange as he believes he can contain the poaching exercise. So where is this transfer of knowledge happening? In the conference room. Is he present in the conference room all the time? No. Then how can he be sure such an attempt has not already been made. No. Pat came the answer.

If you treat your team well and they see a challenging future in the current workplace, they will stay despite all attempts from external sources. If not, they have already tucked away where you cannot see it.

Tags: Musings,Poaching,Supplier,Vendor

Comments

  1. Rightly observed..I've faced such situations too...

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    1. Were you approached with an offer? Were your team members offered a new position?

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  2. That's true, I guess poaching keeps happening at every sector, like you mentioned - right from childhood toys to teams and sometimes to patents and political victories as well.. Looks like it is a well rounded world :)

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    1. That is an humorous and also a cynical comment. :) Some of it is called plain stealing. some hijacking and other poaching. :)

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  3. Absolutely correct. People forget that stealing/possessing nature marks weakness of mental character.

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    1. Nowadays, everyone is bothered about success only.

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  4. Poaching is not exactly stealing. Stealing one gets everything without spending a dime. Poaching is expensive, if the person being poached knows his worth.

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    1. When you consider the efforts one spends to groom a resource, then poaching becomes stealing. In this particular case of poaching, it can be very expensive.

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