The Gap You Can't See From the Inside

Every decision we make, every conversation we have, every signal we send passes through another person's unique wiring. What eventually lands on the other side is filtered through who they are, not who we are. That is the interpretation layer.

That is why the gap between the signal we intend to send and what is received can be so wide. And it shapes more than most of us realize.

In this episode, Leslie Ferry makes The Wiring Gap™ concrete. Not as a concept, but as something you will recognize from your own experience. Three of the most common places it shows up: how we make decisions, how we respond to tension, and how we communicate. In each one, the gap has nothing to do with bad intentions. It has everything to do with wiring.

In this episode:

• Why The Wiring Gap is invisible from the inside and what makes it so hard to see without help
• How our natural decision-making style creates signals others are already reading
• How three different approaches to tension produce three very different perceptions
• What our communication style signals to people wired differently than we are
• Why the first step to closing the gap starts with curiosity, not change

The thinking in these episodes is designed to provoke a question. Zandra is built to help you answer it — personally, in the context of your own work: zandra.app

Transcript

Welcome back to the Career Edge, where we unpack how work actually works. I'm Leslie Ferry. This is episode two of the Wiring Gap series. And in the last episode, Christa Fisher and I talked about career pathing and the one thing most career plans are missing. That missing layer is The Wiring Gap™. The distance between who we intend to be at work and who others actually experience.

Today I want to make that gap feel real. If you're building your career, this will show you what others are already reading about you. If you're leading others, it'll show you what your team might not be telling you. And I want to warn you upfront, some of what we're about to look at will feel familiar. Some of it might catch you off guard. And that's exactly the point, because the gap doesn't live in obvious places. It lives in the moments that

feel completely natural to us, but land differently on someone wired another way. Here's what makes the wiring gap genuinely invisible from the inside.

We experience our own intent. Others experience our actions. And in between intent and action, between what we mean and what we do, there's always a translation. That translation is shaped by our wiring, how we naturally process information, how we approach decisions, how we respond when things get tense. Our wiring feels completely natural to us.

It's how we've always operated. It's so familiar, we've even stopped noticing it. What we can't see from the inside is that the people around us are wired differently. They process the same situations through their own set of filters. And when our natural way of operating passes through their filters, the signal that arrives is not always the signal we meant to send. Think of it this way.

Every signal we send passes through another person's unique wiring before it arrives. Their experiences, their values, their natural approach to work shape what they receive. What comes out on the other side is filtered through who they are, not who we are. That is the interpretation layer.

And because we can't see it from the inside,

we often have no idea what actually landed.

These are a few ways that this can happen. There are actually many more. Think about how you approach a decision at work. Some people think out loud. They process by talking, exploring options, voicing doubts, changing directions mid-sentence. For them, the conversation is the thinking. The messiness is part of how they arrive at clarity. Others think before they speak. They go quiet.

work through the problem internally, and come back with a conclusion. For them, the thinking happens before the conversation begins.

Neither approach is better. But when an out loud thinker and a quiet thinker are in the same room, the gap opens immediately. The out loud thinker, working through ideas in real time, can read as uncertain, inconsistent, or unprepared to someone who processes quietly. The quiet thinker, going still while they think, they can read as disengaged, withholding information,

or difficult to read to someone who processes out loud. Nobody is doing anything wrong. Both are doing exactly what their wiring does naturally. But the signal landing on the other side of the table is not the signal either of them intended to send.

Conflict is one of the clearest windows into wiring and one of the most common sources of misread signals. Some people, they move toward tension directly. When there's a disagreement, they name it, address it, and work through it. For them, directness is a form of respect. Avoiding the conversation can feel dishonest, like something is being left unresolved that both people are pretending not to notice.

Others need space before they can engage productively. They prefer to process privately first, address things when emotions aren't running high, and find direct confrontation in the moment jarring rather than clarifying. They need time to think before they can talk. And then there are those whose tolerance for conflict is so low that they step back entirely, hoping the tension will resolve itself.

if everyone just keeps moving forward. As most professionals eventually learn,

it rarely does. Unaddressed tension doesn't disappear.

it accumulates. When these approaches meet, and they do in every workplace, the misreads compound quickly.

The direct person reads the person who needs space as avoidant, passive, possibly even hard to trust. The person who needs space can experience the direct person as overwhelming or too intense or hard to open up to. The person who steps back entirely can be read by everyone as checked out or indifferent

when they may simply be hoping the situation resolves itself without confrontation. None of these readings are necessarily accurate, but they happen, and they shape perceptions that can be harder to shift later. Communication style is another visible expression of wiring. Some people are naturally direct. They say what they mean, get to the point quickly, and move on. For them, this is simply efficiency.

respect even. But to someone wired differently, that directness can land as forceful, possibly intimidating, or indifferent to how others are feeling in the conversation. Some people are naturally animated. They have high energy, expressive, and are enthusiastic. They bring a lot into the room, and that energy is genuine. But to someone who processes more quietly, that same energy can read as overwhelming.

or distracting rather than engaging. Others are naturally more tactful, careful with their words, attentive to how things land, inclined to soften or qualify before making a point. This style tends to be received well across the board, but even here, the gap can open. What reads as considerate to one person can read as indirect or hard to pin down to someone who values clarity,

above all else. No one is communicating the wrong way. But the signals arriving is not always the signal being sent.

The wiring gap isn't caused by bad intentions. It's caused by the invisible distance between how we naturally operate and how that lands on someone wired differently. And the first step to closing it isn't changing who we are. It's becoming genuinely curious about what our natural style is actually signaling, especially in the moments that matter most. Because here's the thing, the gap doesn't live in how others read us generally.

It lives in the specific, everyday actions that feel completely normal to us, but we've never thought to examine that others are reading as something quite different. And that's what the next episode is about. There, we'll look at the skills most of us believe we have and examine what they are actually signaling at work. Some of it again will be familiar, and again, some of it might surprise you.

The thinking in these episodes is designed to provoke a question. Zandra is built to help you answer it, personally, in the context of your own work at Zandra.app. Thanks for listening to The Career Edge. I'll see you next time.