The Irrational Fear: He has knowledge about the product that no one else does. He is the only one who knows how to debug the hard problems. He is the only one who has the entire system in his head. He’s the guy we call when the problem is really, really hard, and without him we won’t be able to solve really hard problems anymore.

Don’t Worry: This is clearly your Alpha when it comes to the knowledge of your team. The blessing and the curse of Alpha Knowledge isn’t just that they know everything; it’s that everyone else knows that they know. This is informationally convenient for the group because whenever someone has a hard question, they know exactly who to ask.

While the absence of this person is alarming, what you’ll quickly discover is that all the answers to those questions everyone was asking Alpha Knowledge actually stuck in the heads of those folks. In fact, they were often asking their question as a means of confirmation rather than as a process of discovery. See, after the third time they ask, they know the answer. They know how it works, but Alpha Knowledge’s presence meant they questioned themselves: “Well, I think I know, but I’d best confirm with Alpha before proceeding.”

My assumption is that the majority of the knowledge you believe is in Alpha’s head has already cross-pollinated to other team members. Alpha’s departure will give others the incentive to trust what they already know.

But Pay Attention: While it’s likely that formerly quiet team members will step in to fill the knowledge gap, there is knowledge and ability walking out the door. But it’s not the broad knowledge you’re concerned about—it’s the little undocumented knowledge. Why is it that variable has that particular name? What is the story behind the naming scheme for the servers? What is this cryptic note in the code that reads, “Two more of these and we’re screwed”?

You can ask this person to document the state of the world as much as you like, but they’re going to forget something small and something essential to the inner workings of the product. You’re going to discover this omission months after they’re gone, and worse, when they’ve totally forgotten about their prior professional life. “Two more of what things? I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

What you need to pay attention to when Alpha Knowledge leaves is the team’s ability to handle the unexpected. It’s not the day-to-day operations of the team that will be impacted by the absence of Alpha. It’s when shit hits the fan that you’re really going to miss him because it’s his undocumented improvisational skills that are gone and are not coming back.

Again, there is essential information walking out the door, but most of the time the group can live without that information. Teams work around the absence because they don’t have a choice, and once they’ve worked around it once, they’ve learned what is missing, and they’ve updated the way that works.

The Fear: She’s looking out for us. She’s shielding us from the bullshit. She’s protecting our culture. We have additional opportunity because she is here. Decisions are being made in our favor because she’s sitting at the table fighting for us.

The Reality: We’re going to call her Maestro because she’s conducting the business of the group. She’s likely a senior manager, director, or VP, and now she’s gone. Like Alpha Knowledge, the vacuum created by her absence will send those interested in her job into a frenzy. Who is going to inherit her crown? Who deserves it? What are they going to do to get it? All of these questions are interesting, but the reality is that you need to understand why she left. You’re sad she’s leaving, but is everyone?

Leaders define the culture that surrounds them. The reality about this culture is two-fold. First, when Maestro leaves, she’s permanently taking part of that culture with her. And second, the culture above and around her is going to seep in. Whether or not this now intruding culture is a fit with your team is the real question. Was Maestro protecting her team from this culture? If so, why? And, most importantly, is any of the reason for her departure a result of conflict with this external culture?

Leaders optimize reality to their favor, and the more powerful and influential they are, the more they can define a comfortable reality for themselves and their team. The more this reality conflicts with the rest of the company, the more your team will need to adapt when the Maestro leaves the building with her personal reality distortion field, and that’s where you need to pay attention.

But Pay Attention: What you’re going to learn in the first month after an influential leader has left the group is how much her view of the goals of your group differ from the goals set by the company. Ideally, your former leader did a fine job of translating corporate vision into regionally relevant goals. Ideally, her daily direction for the group was aligned with the direction of external groups and those of whoever steps in to fill her spot.

But maybe it wasn’t.

There’s shielding the team from politics and nonessential crap that they don’t need to know so they can focus on getting work done, but there’s also shielding to an unnecessary degree. This is why, when an influential leader has left the building, I pay attention to blank stares.

There are inevitable organizational investigation meetings that occur when a person in a position of power leaves. There are questions for the remaining team, and when those questions are directed to me, I’m looking to see how my answers are being received. Nodding is the universal sign that those sitting with you are on the same page. Nodding means they understand. A blank stare means there’s a disconnect, and when the blank stares are coming from the people your former boss interacted with, I begin to wonder what she was telling them and what she wasn’t.

Whether Maestro was shielding you from crap, was creating her own reality, or was a perfect fit with the culture external to the group, a cultural gap will be created by her absence. New leaders will bring their own culture with them, and that means the team will need to adapt.

The Fear: He knows everything. He’s incredibly well connected, and that means we were always ahead of the game. He was the person I always went to when I wanted to know what was going down. He eliminated surprises.

The Reality: The Insider is the person on the team who thrives on knowing what is going on in the company. He’s known for it. In staff meetings, all eyes turn to him when juicy data needs confirmation:

Boss: “And it looks they’re three months late.”

<all eyes turn to the Insider>

Insider: <nods>

Boss: “So, they’re screwed.”

The role of the Insider isn’t just gossip; he’s the person on the team who is, as I talked about in a prior chapter, the keeper of the truth. Insiders are genetically compelled to know what is going on everywhere, and they hopefully use the skill as a means of keeping the folks around them equipped with the latest, greatest information, wherein lies the reality.

While the Insider is the perceived keeper of the truth, information moves in a group of people in more ways than you can imagine—especially the juicy stuff. You don’t need to fear suddenly not being in the know; information will travel as a function of its interestingness. The Insider’s absence will put a kink in your one-stop information shopping, but his absence won’t leave you permanently in the dark.

But Pay Attention: Your former Insider had two roles—collector of information and conveyor of information—and it’s the latter where you want to pay attention. Part of the Insider’s makeup isn’t just that they know what to ask whom, but also knowing who needed to know what.

What I’m looking for in the Insider’s absence is who is now lost? Who was dependent on the Insider for knowing what was going on in the group and in the company? What essential and nonobvious communication flow has stopped with the Insider’s absence? This sudden dearth of communication is likely happening in a place you don’t expect. It’s not a meeting the Insider no longer attends, it’s that random hallway check-in he’s no longer performing, and it means that someone is silently adrift. This isn’t mission-critical information they’re now missing; it’s the comfortable information of the now.

You’d think that with the menagerie of meetings managers insist on holding that communication in a group of people would be well structured and predictable. It’s not. For every useful piece of information that happens in a staff meeting, there’s an equal amount of information traveling in hallways, emails, and random cube conversations. With the Insider gone, communication has stopped flowing...somewhere, and the consequences of this information standstill can vary from simple confusion to organizational chaos.