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I don't understand it! Especially where foreign companies are clearly outperforming American companies, why wouldn't GM target a rising Toyota exec and offer him twice what a Toyota CEO would make but half what the incompetent GM CEO makes?
You're assuming that CEO competence is unlimited in its range and potential. It could be that decisions CEOs make are fairly obvious and simple ones, that their skillsets are only somewhat more demanding than those of any other top tier professional, and that a lot of the variance of outcomes between companies comes down to more structural matters than whose at the helm. If business churn is more about structuralism than great man theory, then there are diminishing returns for attempting to poach talent.
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Isn't Toyota still family-run?
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You could even try to poach the literal Toyota CEO with twice his current salary... Even if he's meh at GM you've still destabilised your competition somewhat by taking away their sitting CEO. That alone is probably worth it.
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