The Demand

This week, before you exit another cast member, you run the read: character or context. If you cannot articulate the difference on the spot, you do not have a People fundamental running, you have a hope strategy, and the next hire inherits the same unsolved problem.

The Work

Pull the list of every cast member currently on a written or verbal warning, or on your own mental exit list. For each name, do the following before Friday.

  1. Write down the specific miss. Not a character label. The actual behavior or standard gap.
  2. Ask what the cast member was handed going into the shifts where the miss occurred: training, communication, staffing, tools.
  3. Ask what they were told the standard was, and when. If you cannot name the moment the standard was taught, the standard was assumed, not communicated.
  4. Sort each name into one of two piles: system-produced miss (recovery candidate) or values gap after a genuine investment (exit candidate).

This week, you commit to running Character vs. Context on every name in the system-produced pile before you schedule a single accountability conversation. The posture is invest first, exit only when the investment has been made and has genuinely failed.