The cast member who is performing adequately has stopped generating attention. The cast member who is visibly struggling gets coaching. The cast member who is quietly disengaging gets nothing — because quiet disengagement doesn't trigger the salience network. By the time the exit conversation happens, the disengagement has been building for months at a rate too slow to notice.

[Attention Distortion] in the People fundamental produces a development culture organized around visible problems rather than invisible potential. The cast member who needs the most development gets the most attention — because they are generating the most signal. The cast member who is performing solidly and ready for more gets none — because solid performance is invisible.

[Salience Bias] — the cast member who creates a problem gets coaching. The cast member who is quietly delivering at standard gets assumed to be fine. The assumption is not a read. It is the absence of a read, filled in by the attentional system with "no signal equals no problem."

[Anchoring] — the operator who hired a cast member at a certain capability level anchors their read of that person to the hire. Growth that has happened since the hire gets underweighted because the anchor pulls the evaluation back toward the original assessment. The cast member who has grown significantly since being hired is still being read through a two-year-old anchor.

[Contrast Effect] — the cast member evaluated after a weaker performer looks stronger than they are. The cast member evaluated after a star performer looks weaker than they are. The evaluation is not absolute. It is contaminated by sequence.

[Priming] — the operator who heard a complaint about a cast member before walking onto the floor reads that cast member through the complaint. The prime shapes every subsequent observation. The cast member who received a compliment before the operator's walk gets read through the compliment. Same cast member. Different prime. Different read.

The People discipline against [Attention Distortion]: design the cast read to be systematic, not reactive. The one-on-one that happens on schedule — not triggered by a problem. The development conversation that asks about readiness before the visible gap appears. The performance review that is run against a consistent standard, not against the cast member who was reviewed just before.