Building Your Own Feedback Loop

Every signal we send passes through another person's unique wiring before it lands. That interpretation layer is always present. And closing the distance it creates is not a one-time insight. It is a practice.

In this episode about The Wiring Gap™ series, Leslie Ferry answers the most practical question of the series. How do you actually close the Wiring Gap?

The answer is not a technique or a checklist. It is a loop. The Performance Loop™, Intelligence times Reflection times Adjustment equals Growth, applied directly to the gap between who we intend to be at work and who others experience. 

Intelligence means genuinely paying attention to how others are wired. What they need to feel clear. How they experience feedback. What care looks like to them. Reflection means asking not how did that go, but what signal did I actually send. And Adjustment means making small, deliberate shifts based on what reflection reveals. Shifts that compound over time.

Insight without a practice fades. This episode is about building the practice.

 In this episode:

• Why one-time moments of clarity are not enough to close the Wiring Gap
• How The Performance Loop™ applies directly to closing the gap
• What intelligence actually means in the context of understanding how others are wired
• Why real reflection asks what they received, not what you intended
• How small, deliberate adjustments compound into lasting change
• What becomes available when the gap starts to close

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/insight

Transcript

Welcome back to the Career Edge, where we unpack how work actually works. I'm Leslie Ferry. Over the last four episodes, we've covered a lot of ground about the wiring gap. We've established that there's a gap between who we intend to be at work and who others can experience.

That it's invisible from the inside and that it shapes every professional relationship we have. 

Today, I want to answer the most practical question of the series for both the professional building their career and the manager who wants to unlock their team members capabilities. How do you actually close the wiring cap? Here's what happens with most professionals' growth work. We have a moment of clarity and we see ourselves differently. We understand something about how we've been showing up that we didn't see before. And then, slowly, quietly, 

We go back to operating the way we always have. Not because the insight wasn't real, but because the insight without a practice doesn't compound, it fades. The wiring gap, it doesn't close because we understand it once. It closes because we build the habit of examining it continuously and adjusting what we find.

And the performance loop is what makes that possible. You may have heard me talk about the performance loop in earlier episodes, where I define it as intelligence times reflection times adjustment equals growth. I want to show you exactly how it applies to closing the wiring gap, because it's where the framework becomes most personal. Intelligence in this context means expanding our knowledge or data 

about how others are wired, not diagnosing them or categorizing them in any way, but genuinely paying attention to how different people approach work, how they process information and evaluate the signals that they receive from others.

What you'll want to observe includes things like, what does this person need to feel clear? What signals matter most to them around trust? How do they experience feedback as information or as judgment? How do they react to conflict or what does care look like to them?

You can't close the gap with people you don't understand. So intelligence is how you build that understanding.

Reflection in this context means asking the harder question about our work experiences. Not how did that go, but what signal did I send? Not what did I intend to send?

but what was received.

That distinction is the essential question not everyone stops to consider. We all tend to assess our own performance based on our intentions. Real Reflection assesses it based on what was experienced on the other side of the conversation.

You do that by reflecting on things like nonverbal cues and what did the individual take away after the interaction.

So after your next significant interaction, maybe it's a meeting, a difficult conversation, a piece of work you just delivered,

Reflect on one question. What did the other person actually experience? Not what you hope they experience. What evidence do you have about what they actually took away? Did they seem comfortable with the outcome or confused? Just accepting or fully embracing how to move forward? Were there any signs of them being a bit standoffish?

That's reflection that closes the gap. And adjustment means making deliberate, specific change based on what reflection revealed. Not dramatic reinvention or trying to become someone that you're not, but small conscious shifts in how you show up for others based on what you've learned about the gap that you've tested and refined over time.

Examples include things like, I'll lead with the outcome before the reasoning when sharing an idea with this person. Or I'll acknowledge the impact on the team before presenting the logic to another. I'll check for understanding before assuming alignment with everyone. Those are adjustments and they compound.

The wiring gap is invisible from the inside. That's what makes it so easy to miss and so worth understanding. But now you see it and seeing it changes everything because you can't close a gap you can't see. And now that you can see it, you have a choice. You can keep operating the way you always have, assuming the gap is smaller than maybe it actually is, or you can start closing it deliberately, consistently.

one adjustment at a time. That's the practice. And that's the career edge. Thanks so much for spending time with me on this series.

The thinking in these episodes is designed to provoke a question and Zandra is built to help you answer it personally in the context of your own work. Zandra.app forward slash insight. 

Thanks so much for listening to The Career Edge. I'll see you next time.