Receiving Feedback: Gaps

Episode Transcript

The Receiving Feedback Gaps card states, “We often view ourselves through the lens of what we intended. Others experience us by the impact of our actions, and that’s what they give feedback on.” And the card invites you to practice the acknowledgement, which you can do by leading with what they experienced, not what you intended. “My impact didn’t match my intent. I’ll work to close that gap. Thank you.”

Let’s get into the details of this one, because I think they’re important. So the gap between intent and impact shows up differently across domains. In boxing, it’s immediate. You may have intended to parry the jab, but you didn’t, and the impact was that you took it right on the nose. There’s no ambiguity there. A singer may have intended to hit a certain note on a particular word, missed it entirely, and the impact was a sound they could hear and feel was wrong. In domains like these, the feedback is built in. Your body tells you, the sound tells you. The gap between intent and impact announces itself instantly and obviously.

But in other domains, including, and maybe especially, communicating with other humans, the gap is often invisible to us. We can intend to say or mean one thing, but the words we choose or our tone or our posture or our timing or a multitude of other factors can mean the actual impact was something entirely different. We intended to be direct. Someone experienced dismissiveness. We intended thoroughness. Someone experienced being micromanaged. And unlike that jab on the nose, we often don’t feel any of it happen. We walk away from the conversation believing our intent was the impact and all is good.

This is why often we naturally need others to serve as a mirror. Not because our intent doesn’t matter. It does. It matters a lot, actually. But because intent is only visible from the inside. Impact is only visible from the outside. And others usually are the only ones positioned to help show us the difference so we can see the true impact and be in a better position to grow.

Now, when someone offers you this kind of feedback, there’s a graceful way to receive it. It’s fine to speak to what your intent was. That’s honest, and it often helps the giver understand you better. But too often we stop there. In my experience, it’s far better to acknowledge that there seems to have been a mismatch between your intent and the impact, that you’ll review or reflect on why that is the case, and that you’ll work to bring those into better alignment. That’s what the acknowledgement card helps with. “My impact didn’t match my intent. I’ll work to close that gap. Thank you.” It honors your intent without hiding behind it.

That’s card 07 of the Receiving Feedback suit. The next time someone shows you a gap you couldn’t see, a gap that was perhaps far different than what you intended, resist the urge to only defend your intent. Name the gap instead. This puts you in a far better position for growth.