From the Book
What Is the Signal Gap?
Updated August 2026 · from the book by Henna Pryor
A signal gap is the distance between the signal you mean to send and what an audience actually receives. The term comes from workplace performance expert Henna Pryor's book The Signal Gap (Ideapress, November 2026). You can be honest, competent, and well-meaning - and still watch your message land as something you never intended, because the signals around it told a different story.
Why does the signal gap exist?
Signal gaps aren't new - people have always sent signals they didn't mean to send. Self-awareness researcher Dr. Tasha Eurich calls the signal gap "a modern amplification of a very old challenge." What changed is the scale. Eight shifts - cheap polish, searchable archives, screenshots, vanished hallway context among them - flipped the cultural default from trust-then-verify to verify-then-trust. Polish got cheap, so polish got suspicious. Today a hairline crack in one signal can widen into a canyon.
What does the signal gap look like at work?
It looks like every room feeling a little like TSA: your message can still get through, but first your signals have to make it past security. Credibility - the title, the track record, the stuff on paper - still gets you in the room. But once you're in it, you have to be believable, or none of it lands. The audience that decides is what Pryor calls the Observant Middle: not your fans, not your haters, but the undecided people quietly auditing you in real time.
Can you close the signal gap?
Yes - and that's the book. Believability comes from congruence: every signal - your words, reasoning, behavior, and context - pointing in the same direction as the truth underneath. The Signal Gap teaches five practices for getting there: always disarm before you deliver, say the awkward part out loud, let them watch you think, choose words that travel without you, and audit the promises you didn't even know you were making.
Frequently asked questions
Who coined the term "the signal gap"?
Henna Pryor - a Certified Speaking Professional, 2x TEDx speaker, Inc. columnist, and author of Good Awkward. The Signal Gap is her second book, published by Ideapress on November 10, 2026.
Is the signal gap the same as a credibility gap?
No - and the difference is the point of the book. Credibility is the stuff on paper: the title, the track record. It gets you in the room. Believability decides whether anything lands once you're in it, and a signal gap is what opens up when the signal you mean to send isn't the one your audience receives.
Where can I learn more?
The book is available for pre-order now, and Henna speaks on this topic at conferences and sales kickoffs worldwide.
Keep reading
About Henna Pryor
Henna Pryor is a Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), 2x TEDx speaker, Inc. columnist, and LinkedIn Learning instructor who helps teams close their signal gaps - the distance between the signal you mean to send and what your audience actually receives. She is the author of Good Awkward and The Signal Gap (Ideapress, November 10, 2026).
The Signal Gap: How to Boost Believability and Influence in the Age of Doubt
Publishing November 10, 2026
For Meeting Planners & Bureaus
Henna keynotes sales kickoffs, leadership meetings, and HR & L&D conferences on trust, believability, influence, and workplace performance.
From The Signal Gap by Henna Pryor