o left, Armstrong seemed to be disappointed by only one: an executive who came to AT&T when we acquired his company and left when a competitor offered him a $15 million signing bonus, a Jaguar, and monthly first-class air tickets to its home base on the West Coast for his aging mother. Executive departures (planned or not) can be a powerful teaching tool for an organization. Instead of papering over the underlying rea- sons for such a departure, you should seize the opportunity to signal the changes it enables. People may ignore CEOs' memos, but they scrutinize their actions. When Armstrong gave executives the third degree in meetings, but let Hindery skip out of meetings with barely a nod at his spot on the agenda, he lost credibility with his senior team. When Hindery left, Armstrong lost his last chance to recapture the vision he had sold to AT&T's people just a year before. This page intentionally left blank Pay Attention to the Power of the Few Never underestimate the power of small groups with big interests, especially when they demand that you measure up to your own rhetoric. They cannot be bought off or outspent because they do not run on money. They get their power from the righteousness of their cause and the people who are drawn to it. Never get dragged into a fight with true believers unless the stakes are SO high that the only realistic alternative is to win. But be prepared to go the distance for that small number of issues that are central to your company's values or business strategy. The Hot Network After Hindery's departure, Armstrong made a point of traveling to Denver at least every other week for full-day performance reviews. At one of those meetings early in 2000, Somers ran through a series of actions he was planning to take to increase cable revenue. They ranged from price increases to a more aggressive program to track down and prosecute people who splice into a neighbor's TV cable and piggyback for free. At the end of the meeting, Somers excused most of his team and told Armstrong that t