The Wiring Gap™: The Other Side

Every signal we send passes through another person's unique wiring before it lands. That interpretation layer shapes every professional relationship we have.

But it runs in both directions.

Every signal others send passes through our wiring, too. Our work motivations, our natural approach to decisions, and our initial orientation at work all shape what we receive. Which means the same gap that causes others to misread us is also causing us to misread them.

Not intentionally, but subconsciously, because our wiring does not feel like a lens. It feels like reality. And when it feels like reality, our assumptions feel like observations. We rarely stop to examine the difference.

In this episode, Leslie Ferry opens a new series dedicated entirely to the other side of The Wiring Gap™. Not the gap others have with you. The gap you have with them.

In this episode:

• Why our own wiring is the hardest lens to see
• How two different work motivations can misread each other without either person doing anything wrong
• Why data-driven thinkers can be read as challenging when they are simply seeking clarity
• What happens when we read an action in isolation rather than seeing a whole person
• How curiosity changes not just the read but the relationship
• Why getting curious before landing on a view becomes instinctive over time, and what that unlocks

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 Fiery. If you've been with me through the wiring gap series, today we're going somewhere new with it. As I briefly mentioned before, the wiring gap runs in both directions.

We've spent several episodes looking at one side of it, how our natural way of showing up at work creates signals that others read through their own unique wiring, how that interpretation layer, the filter between what we send and what lands, shapes every professional relationship we have. But here's what we have not yet talked about. Every signal others send passes through our own wiring,

before it lands too. Our experiences, our motivations, our natural approach to work, they all shape what we receive. Which means the same gap that causes others to misread us can also cause us to misread them. Not intentionally, subconsciously. Because that's how wiring works. It's the initial lens through which we see everything, including people we work with every day, before we know to look for it.

that's what the next several episodes is all about. Not the gap others might experience with us, the gap we experience with others. Our own wiring, it doesn't feel like a lens, it feels like reality.

the way we naturally approach work, the things we prioritize, how we process information, what we need before we can fully engage. All of it feels so familiar and so obviously correct

that we stop noticing it as a natural pattern rather than a universal truth.

And because it feels like reality, we read everything else through it. When someone operates differently, we don't immediately think their wiring is different from ours. We think something is off, that they aren't focused or resistant or not fully committed or difficult to read. The read feels accurate because it came from inside our own experience. This is what makes the other side of the wiring gap so hard to see.

It's not that we're making careless assumptions, it's that our assumptions feel like observations, and we rarely stop to examine the difference.

That's the wiring gap running in the opposite direction. Others filter our signals through their wiring. We filter their signals through ours, that interpretation layer that runs both ways. And until we can see our own wiring as a lens rather than a truth, the reads we make about others will keep feeling accurate even when they're not, or how we are misreading others.

This came into sharp focus for me with the team I inherited. I am naturally motivated by outcomes. I move towards results and I'm a data-driven thinker. So before I commit to a direction, I like to think through the implications, the second and third order impacts, the things that are not immediately obvious. Foresight matters to me. So I ask questions and a lot of them sometimes.

several members of my new team were motivated differently. They needed to feel connected before they could commit fully to a direction. And when it came to decisions, they trusted their instincts. They could read a situation, arrive at a conclusion, and feel confident in it. My questions were not intended to challenge that confidence. I simply was just not there yet. I needed to think through the implications before I commit.

But to people who had already settled into a decision, my questions, they didn't feel like curiosity. They felt like doubt, like I didn't trust their judgment. From the inside, my approach felt completely right to me. I was focused, I was moving, I was getting things done. And when I asked questions, I genuinely believed I was doing my job well. Thinking ahead,

protecting the team from decisions that hadn't been fully examined. But nothing was landing the way I intended. And when the team wasn't delivering what I needed, I started to wonder whether people were in the right roles for them. There was frustration on both sides. Mine, because I couldn't understand what was getting in the way. Theirs, because they were not getting what they needed to fully engage. And my questions, which I intended as clarity seeking,

were landing as challenges to their judgment and their decisions. What I couldn't see was my wiring was filtering everything I was receiving from them. Their actions were passing through my interpretation layer before they arrived. And the reads I was making about their engagement or their commitment, their capability were being shaped entirely by my work motivations and my natural way of processing decisions, not.

their intent. When I finally learned what each of them needed, something shifted.

I didn't just understand them better. I interpreted their performance differently. I learned how to connect with them, how to provide clarity in the way that landed for them. And what I had been reading as a capability question turned out to be a connection question all along. That's the other side of the wiring gap. Here's what shifts when we start to see our misreads through that gap. Instead of landing on a read and moving forward with it,

We get curious. We ask questions like, I wonder what is influencing that person's thinking right now? I wonder why they responded that way. What does that tell me about who they are and what motivates them at work? What do I already know about this person that might be helping me understand what just happened? That shift from assumption to curiosity changes more than just the read. It changes the relationship.

When we get curious about what is driving someone's actions rather than landing on a view driven by our own wiring, we start learning things about them we couldn't see before. What motivates them at work? What they need to feel safe enough to bring their full capability forward? How they process direction and feedback and collaboration. And that knowledge changes how we approach them, not as a strategy, naturally.

We stop seeing them through the lens of our own work motivations and start seeing them as they are.

The person we read as uncommitted becomes someone whose commitment looks different from ours. The person read as resistant becomes someone who processes the world in a way we have never considered.

And here's where it gets genuinely interesting. When we stop misreading the people around us and start understanding what actually drives them, something shifts in what a team can do together. The person we read as challenging is often the one asking the questions no one else had yet thought to ask. The person we read as unfocused is often the one making sure the conditions for success are actually in place. Those are not competing forces. They are complimentary ones.

And when both are recognized for what they can actually contribute, the whole team operates at a level no single angle could have reached alone. Those shifts, they don't just change individual relationships. They change what a team is capable of together. Trust builds faster. Collaboration becomes real. The friction that was slowing everything down starts to disappear. Not because the work got easier, because the people

doing it, finally understand each other. And here's something worth noting. This process, it doesn't stay effortful forever. The more we practice getting curious before landing on a read, the more instinctive it becomes. We stop having to remind ourselves to pause. It becomes how we naturally see situations. This is intelligence building, expanding what we know about the people we work with through genuine attention.

to their motivations.

And that intelligence powers everything else that follows, how we communicate, how we motivate, how we influence, how we lead. That is the performance loop at work, intelligence expanding through genuine attention to others, reflection on what we are actually receiving versus what we're reading through our own wiring, and adjustments to how we engage based on what we're learning. The professionals who build this practice

They don't just become better at reading others. They become more effective at everything that depends on human understanding, communication, trust, motivation, influence, decision-making. All of it improves because the intelligence underneath it is getting sharper. And it starts with recognizing that our wiring is always in the room, always filtering, always shaping what we receive before we even know it has happened.

So the wiring gap, it runs in both directions. Understanding our own gap, how others experience us, is the inward work. Understanding the gap we have with others, how our wiring shapes what we receive from them, is the outward work.

That's what we've been doing here.

In the next episode, we're going to get more specific, real moments, real misreads, the kind that happen in meetings, in one-on-ones, in small interactions that quietly shape what we think we know about people we work with. The thinking in these episodes is designed to

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 forward slash insight.

Thanks for listening to the Career Edge. I'll see you next time.