Near the end of almost every meeting we have with a partner, someone from Parisleaf will say their own version of this statement: “In the spirit of our value of candor, we’d like to make time now for the last 10%.”
We say it at the close of discovery interviews. We say it in our workshops. We say it in our weekly check-in calls, when it would be easier (and possibly more popular) to wrap up five minutes early. The last 10% is the part of a conversation people usually withhold: the concern that feels too small to raise, the feedback that might sting, the truth nobody wants to be the one to say.
The ask itself is about candor, but what happens next is about gratitude. Gratitude is usually treated as a feeling. Over years of intentional practice, though, we’ve made it a habit.
Why candor needs gratitude
By comparison, asking for hard truths is easy, but making it safe to tell them is harder. The person who speaks up takes a real risk. They don’t know how their words will land, or whether being honest will cost them something with their colleagues, their leadership, or with us.
Researchers who study gratitude describe it as doing three jobs. It works as a barometer, registering that someone did something costly for your benefit. It works as a motivator, prompting you to give something back. And it works as a reinforcer: when people are thanked for what they gave, they are more likely to give it again.
I’ve watched that last one play out many times. When a partner tells us something hard, and we thank them for it and actually do something with it, the next hard thing comes more easily. Over time, they stop waiting to be asked. Some partners now bring their last 10% before we get to it, with the reassurance that it won’t be held against them. Candor opens the door, while gratitude is what makes people willing to walk through it again and again.
Leading by example
Honestly, if all we did was ask, it would get old fast. Ask the same question every week and eventually you get the same answer: “Nope, we’re good.”
So we go first. On a weekly call, that might sound like “I’ll be honest, I think we’re leaving out this important point”. I’d rather show a partner what that looks like than tell them to do it. We’re active participants in it, not just the ones asking.
And when we say the hard thing, it comes from being grateful we get to do this work with them at all (hopefully, they can already tell!). What this does is turn a request into an exchange. It’s a small act of generosity: we give first, without knowing what we’ll get back. In our experience, it’s what gives partners the agency to do the same.
A truth worth honoring
The first phase of our brand foundation work ends with an executive summary: the strategic throughlines we’ve heard and discerned across interviews and research. Usually it distills what a partner already senses but hasn’t put into words.
With one partner, preparing for a major campaign, we knew the summary needed to say something harder. Many of the institution’s longtime supporters carried a more complicated relationship with it than its leadership might have assumed. There was real pride among its alumni base. But for some alumni, that pride existed alongside painful experiences and a sense that they were never fully welcomed or valued.
And they had stepped up anyway. Years later, these alumni chose to support a place that hadn’t always made room for them. That kind of giving costs something, and we didn’t think the campaign could honor that commitment without acknowledging what they had experienced.
This was early, before we’d talked about creative at all, and it wasn’t an easy thing to put in front of campaign leadership. We could only say it because of the trust we’d built from day one. We assumed the best of each other, and we were all there for the mission.
Looking back, the gratitude that mattered most wasn’t between them and us. It was what the institution owed the people who had every reason to walk away and didn’t. It also changed our relationship. After that, they trusted us to push further than we otherwise could have.
It runs both ways
The last 10% isn’t only something we deliver. Sometimes it’s about us.
With another partner, the way our teams worked didn’t fit together as well as we’d hoped at the start of the partnership. Our processes and theirs pulled against each other, and the friction was starting to show. Neither side had done anything wrong, exactly. But without addressing it, the work would have suffered.
What made the difference was that we both cared more about the mission than about being right. We felt fortunate to be doing this work together, so leaving it unresolved wasn’t an option. It took a few conversations, some virtually and one long sit-down with leadership, to work through it. It was important that we identified where we’d dropped the ball, and they were just as honest about where they could have been clearer.
It still took real work to bring the two styles together. Not perfectly, but better. And our partnership came out of it stronger than we went in. I remain grateful for the posture that partner brought to the table, because it gave us room to be vulnerable too.
What the years have taught us
When you work to understand an organization’s true mission, you also uncover its deficits: the history it would rather not discuss, the gaps between what it says and what people experience. Our job is not to gloss over those things or spin them. Supporters and audiences see through spin, and it makes everything else feel disingenuous.
But you can’t poke and prod in those places without permission. That permission comes from trust, and trust is upheld through care. Partners need to know that whatever we uncover, we will steward it carefully as partners, not as critics.
That’s why gratitude has earned its place among our values. It isn’t the warm, fuzzy aspect of our partnerships. It’s what makes the hard part possible. It’s how we receive the truths our partners trust us with. It’s how we earn the chance to offer our own. And sometimes, it’s how we help a partner see who they truly owe their thanks to.
So we’ll keep asking for the last 10%. And we’ll keep saying thank you when we get it.
