On the campaign couch ... with JB. (Close-Up).

Q I've got my eye on a bright young talent at a rival agency in town, but the problem is that their boss is a childhood friend of mine who wouldn't look too favourably on me poaching their rising star. How do I extricate the talent without irreparably pissing off a mate?

I'm sorry you use the word "poaching". As I'm sure you must realise, it would be quite unprincipled of you to restrict a young person's career prospects simply because of a chance childhood friendship of your own. At the same time, I recognise your understandable interest in preserving that friendship. Your course of action therefore becomes clear.

As is so often the case, you need to introduce a third party into the plot and you should do this through the good offices of your most trusted headhunter.

First, identify the rival agency most loathed and despised by your childhood friend (you almost certainly know which it is already). Then, arrange for the trusted headhunter to contact the bright young talent with an ostensible offer from this despised rival. The bright young talent will go immediately to his boss (your childhood friend; I hope you're following carefully) with news of this approach and your childhood friend will become uncontrollably enraged: he would rather the bright young talent went anywhere in the world other than to the despised rival. Your opportunity has now been neatly manufactured.

For the final act, the trusted headhunter puts in a rather better offer to the bright young talent, this time on your behalf; the bright young talent relays this to his boss, who is so relieved and moved to gratitude that he calls you personally.

Naturally, you express regret that the bright young talent has felt the need to move on, but murmur that if he had to make a move ... and what about a spot of lunch quite soon?

Simple, really.