We also encourage all managers to consider each of their employees regularly and make sure they’ve got the best person in every spot. To help managers on the judgment calls, we talk about the Keeper Test:

If a person on your team were to quit tomorrow, would you try to change their mind? Or would you accept their resignation, perhaps with a little relief? If the latter, you should give them a severance package now, and look for a star, someone you would fight to keep.

But the biggest lies are often the ones we tell ourselves. I bit my tongue because I did not want to ask questions. I did not ask questions because I did not want to know the answers.

After several years of stabbings in the dark I tried: ‘What more do you think, or feel, or want to say?’ It worked. They kept going, and I kept out of it.

My noble truth, I’m humbled to admit, didn’t come from within me. It came from the simple act of choosing to continue to live.

Thankfully, there were people close enough to me to tell me the truth. I had a number of conversations with senior staff, who told me there was ambiguity where there shouldn’t have been any: “Nobody’s making decisions, and when someone does step up, they’re accused of making a power grab. You have to name a GM, Will.”

But all I heard was: You need to work harder. You’re not here and you need to be, so you better figure out a way to shoehorn an extra hour into the day so you can do your new job and this one, too. No matter how guilty I felt, I was able to rationalize it away. “How bad could it be, when our guests were so happy?