305. Mastering the Tough Conversations: The Last 8% Rule with Bill Benjamin

When tension spikes, leaders don’t rise to the occasion; they fall to their default. Today we dig into those defaults with Bill Benjamin, co-author of The Last 8%, and unpack why smart, well-intentioned people either blow up or go quiet when it matters most—and how to do better without losing your edge.

We start by naming the two patterns that quietly define culture under pressure: the messmaker who reacts with heat and the avoider who retreats to keep the peace. Bill explains the brain science behind both, from cortisol searing memories to the fear of social judgment that feels like physical pain. That lens changes everything: people remember you in the hard moments, not the easy ones. So we get practical. Bill shares SOS—Stop, Oxygenate, Seek information—as a simple, reliable way to step out of fight-or-flight, regain working memory, and turn certainty into curiosity. Small moves like a sip of water, open palms, or one deep breath can buy the six seconds you need to choose a better response.

We then move into preparation for planned hard conversations. Clarify the exact last 8 percent you must say, set a positive intention that signals safety, and ask open questions so the other person talks first. You’ll hear why many people self-diagnose if given space, how to draw out their last 8 percent, and how to model being coachable without giving up standards. We close with tactics to reset a reputation: share your growth edge with genuine vulnerability, invite real-time cues from your team, and follow up to measure progress. The result is a culture where people trade ego for empathy, certainty for curiosity, and silence for shared truth.

If this sparked an insight, share it with one person who needs it. Subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast app, and leave a quick review to help more leaders find the show. Which are you under pressure—messmaker or avoider—and what last 8 percent will you tackle this week?

🌐 Connect with Bill:
• Website: https://ihhp.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-benjamin-12b671/
• Instagram: https

Chapters

• 0:00 Messmaker Vs Avoider
• 1:00 Meet Bill Benjamin
• 3:10 Promotions Without Leadership Skills
• 5:55 Anxiety, Aha Moments, And Change
• 9:20 Defaults Under Pressure
• 12:30 The Last 8 Percent Defined
• 16:10 Fear Of Judgment And Social Pain
• 19:40 Cortisol, Memory, And Culture
• 23:15 Building Self Awareness
• 26:10 Body As Early Warning System
• 29:00 The SOS Strategy
• 34:10 Curiosity To Defuse Conflict
• 37:45 Preparing Courageous Conversations
• 42:10 Drawing Out Their Last 8 Percent
• 46:00 Resetting Your Leadership Pattern
• 49:10 Recap And Core Takeaways
• 52:00 Lightning Round And Resources

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:01

Have you ever walked out of a leadership moment knowing you made a mess of it? Well, maybe you didn't make a mess, but you avoided saying the one thing that really needed to be said. Have you ever wondered why in moments that matter most, we either react emotionally or stay silent when courage was required in today's episode, I'm joined by Bill Benjamin, co author of the last 8% he has spent years studying high performance teams and the leaders who shaped them, and what he found is fascinating. When leadership breaks down under pressure, it usually shows up in one of two ways, the mess maker or the avoider. This conversation is about why that happens and how emotionally intelligent leaders learn to notice what's happening inside themselves before it costs them trust, performance or relationships. Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Bill Benjamin. Bill is a renowned keynote speaker and a director at the Institute for Health and human potential, and he's also the co author of an upcoming book called The Last 8% and this has got me intrigued. We're going to be talking about culture today and how what sets aside high performance teams based on their culture compared to, let's say, the average normal team. I want to get deep into this so Bill, without any further ado, can you tell us a little bit about your background and what inspires you to to do this work that you do around culture?

Bill Benjamin: 1:43

Yeah, great to be here. Well, my story is, I have degrees in mathematics and computer science, and I spent 14 years in the computer software industry, and I was a successful high performer. So of course, what do organizations do with the high performers? Well, they promote them, make them a manager. Well, it turned out I wasn't a very good manager. People didn't really working for me. I wasn't crazy. I wasn't creating a great culture on my team. And I was fortunate enough to get exposed to this work at that time, and it really helped me. So like, like many of your listeners, you know, I got promoted because I was good at my job, but not necessarily a great leader. And so through being a client of my company, I gained a lot of knowledge, a lot of skills, a lot of self awareness on how to be a better leader, how to build a better culture. I mean, it really made a difference for me. So I decided to leave the computer software company and do this for a living.

Mick Spiers: 2:31

Yeah, outstanding, but that's a story that repeats itself around the world. Someone's good at their job. They might be an outstanding software engineer or a great nurse, so they're really good at their craft, so they get identified as being talented, and they get promoted, but no one shows them what it means to build a team and to build a culture, and they themselves go through a roller coaster of emotion. You know, the euphoric highs of being recognized through to the lows of realizing that they lost and they don't know what to do. So how did that feel for you?

Bill Benjamin: 3:06

I mean, it was very anxiety provoking. I was, you know, I was struggling. I not only, you know, in how I was showing up at work, but also in my personal life. In fact, I heard a quote back then that's always stuck with me. This is going back like 25 years now, but the quote was, or still is, I've had a lot of great moments in my life. I just wish I'd been there for more of them. So I was, I was struggling, both personally and professionally, so it was very challenging.

Mick Spiers: 3:33

That's that hit hard when, when I heard that quote, it's like, yeah, I think everyone can recognize that potentially in themselves. The other, the other thing that happens there, why, by the way, Bill is the double whammy. If you are good at your job, now let's, let's use software engineering as the example, and you're now the team leader. You've you've now lost your best software engineer who's no longer on the on the tools, and you've got a crappy leader that's setting up a poor example, and poor culture for everyone else well.

Bill Benjamin: 4:03

And for the third thing that happens is, if you got promoted from within that group, you go from a group that you were friends with, right, that you were complaining about the boss, you know now you're now you're their leader, and you have to do difficult things. You have to say, No, you have to give them difficult feedback. And they don't like you when you do that. And so I really struggle with the not with the not being liked all the time, with with because I want to be liked. And so, yeah, that was another thing that made it really difficult, was having to show up and do the tough stuff with people who I consider friends.

Mick Spiers: 4:36

I have a feeling that's going to come up again in our conversation as we go but this, this. Want to be liked. If they've been your peers, it is a hard transition to then have challenging conversations with them. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. All right. So tell me what, what was, was there a breakthrough moment for you, like when you realized and woke up one day and looked in the mirror and went, oh shit, I've turned left here when I should have turned right.

Bill Benjamin: 4:59

I mean, if it was one morning, I couldn't sleep, and this was before, like, cell phones, so if you wanted to work, or even a home office, you had to go to the office. I remember once going to the office, and it was, it was still dark out the office wasn't even open yet. Like, it didn't open till six in the morning. It was like 535 and so I'm just standing out there in the cold in Chicago looking at myself, going, what am I? What am I doing? Like, what? So there was a bit of an aha moment of, this isn't working for me. And so that was a point of, and then again, like, fairly shortly after that, I got exposed to my company's I'm one of the partners here. It was founded by my business partner, JP Palu. I got to see him speak shortly after that, and it just was one of those moments like, did he come here just to speak to me, to talk to me about the challenges I'm having? And so I was fortunate shortly after that to find the thing that was going to really help me in the situation.

Mick Spiers: 5:55

Yeah, good Bill. So I'm hearing two things. There a moment of self realization that coincided with someone showing you a different way. That's that's really quite powerful. Would you mind sharing some of your mistakes that you made, like when you when you had that, oh, dark 100 moment? What did you find that you were doing?

Bill Benjamin: 6:19

I wasn't managing my emotions very well. So I was either getting upset and doing what we call making a mess of things, interrupting, getting upset with people, getting defensive, if I was being given feedback or I was avoiding. I wasn't really making the tough decisions. I wasn't, you know, giving people the difficult feedback I was, I was just kind of, I must have been crazy working for me, because in one moment I'm, you know, getting upset about something, another minute, I'm avoiding dealing with something. And so it was really that what we've learned creates great performance is risk taking, and it's so it's not avoiding, but it's not making a mess either. It's stepping in skillfully. It's doing the tough stuff, what we call the last 8% it's doing that tough stuff with skill. So I had to learn both of those. I had to learn to find the courage to push through that, wanting to avoid but being able to step in skillfully.

Mick Spiers: 7:17

Yeah, we're talking about two things here that really do craft the culture, and this is what we're going to go into today, for sure, but listening to this, and if you're listening to this while you're on your way to work or whatever, have a have a look in your own mirror and think about that. Do you emotionally react in the moment, or do you avoid confrontation? Both of those two things are setting a culture, and they may not be the culture that you want.

Bill Benjamin: 7:44

And interesting research. When I research, 68% of people, their predictable default behavior faced with a difficult decision and difficult conversation is to avoid your 32% they tend to make a mess. They tend to react outwardly. Now, interestingly, the higher you go up in an organization that actually switches, so on senior leadership teams, it's it's two thirds, make a Messers and 1/3 avoiders. So very it's very interesting how it changes, you know, the higher up you go in an organization.

Mick Spiers: 8:16

So here's a tough question for everyone in the audience, are you a make a Messer or your avoider, or you're a bit of both and unpredictable, where one day you're showing up as make a Messer and next day you're an avoider. So that's that's our first bit of homework is to be honest with themselves.

Bill Benjamin: 8:33

And it is situational, like we all have this kind of immediate reaction. But it can also be situational, like if a senior leader is challenging, you might be more I'm likely to avoid, but I don't know about you, but when my teenage daughters are yelling, I'm yelling back, and all I'm doing is teaching them to yell when they're frustrated by yelling at them when they're yelling. And so it can be situational, actually, as someone say, well, actually, I avoid, avoid, avoid, then I blow up and make a mess.

Mick Spiers: 8:59

Yeah. Okay, yeah. And in that case, you might have bottled up a whole lot of emotions, and the explosion may be an atomic reaction at that point. Yeah, interesting. Okay, now let's go back to the journey. So you've had this moment of Self Realization, and then someone's come in as a speaker, and they you felt like they were talking directly to you. It's had this light shining moment. What's going through your mind at this point?

Bill Benjamin: 9:27

Well, yeah, one of my favorite quotes is, you know, when the students ready, the teacher appears, and I was just like, I have this is the thing I have to get better at, because he actually explained the brain science of emotions to me. And as a guy with degrees in mathematics, computer science, I like the logical, the analytical, and so, you know, like emotional intelligence standard also often squishy. But when I understood the brain science of it and the research behind it, I said, God, that is the thing I'm struggling with. Like, that's the thing that's making me anxious. That's the thing that's, you know, causing me to, you know, have, have the impact they don't intend. And. So I just really wanted to learn more. And I actually brought him. I had him come in to speak to my computer software company, you know. So I brought him in, and, you know, we developed a relationship. He coached me. I did all the assessments, you know, I did the training. I really immersed myself in the work

Mick Spiers: 10:19

Outstanding, Bill, I couldn't help but chuckle as you're talking. So I'm an engineer, and I discovered psychology later in life, and what absolutely enthralls me about it is it helps me to make rational sense of an irrational world.

Bill Benjamin: 10:36

Yeah, it's we talk about people coming becoming students of human behavior, understanding why you do things, why other people do things. Absolutely, that's, that's, that's what we're that's part of our mission, is to help people learn about human behavior, their own and others, because it can be bloody confounding.

Mick Spiers: 10:53

All right, so as we get to some of the the lessons today, we need to talk about your research. And I'm, I'm just curious about the title of the book, where does the term the last 8% come?

Bill Benjamin: 11:05

Yeah. So this came from about seven or eight years ago. We were coaching two senior executives at a large company, and they weren't getting along like that ever happens, right? And so they were coached to have a conversation with each other, but the impact they were having on each other. They go and they have the conversation on their own. They come back and they're speaking to their individual coaches. When the coaches ask, how did it go? Nobody said, Oh, went fine. Well, the coaches know better. So the coaches pushed a little bit and said, Yeah, but did you really say everything? We agreed you would say. And they both said, basically, I got 85%, 90%, 95% of the way there, the other guy started reacting, and I held back. I didn't really step in and say that last five or 10% or I sugar coated. I didn't really leave saying what I needed to say the most important part. So we took that concept, which resonates for just about everybody, and did a study of 34,000 people and determined that on average, it's 7.56% which we rounded up to eight, 8% that people feel they leave unsaid in a difficult conversation. As we workshopped it, people said, Well, it isn't only tough conversations. There's the tough decisions I face. There's the easy ones in the 92% where everyone's going to be happy, not only taking a risk, but then there's the ones where it's uncertain how it's going to work out, I might fail or someone's going to be unhappy and get mad at me. Those are the tough decisions that keep me up at night. So it's really about those tough conversations and decisions, and ultimately, as we talked about earlier, about risk taking, we think about the last 2% is the gap between the risk we know we should take and the risk we are taking.

Mick Spiers: 12:45

So what's the barrier here? There's one thread coming through already, Bill, which is around, I'm going to say, the need to be liked, the need for love and belonging. If you like the want to not upset people don't You don't necessarily wake up in the morning going, all right, I'm going to rub my hands together and go, How many people can I upset today? So that's not our default behavior.

Bill Benjamin: 13:09

It's the fear of social judgment, so versus the fear of physical you know, and what's amazing is is the feeling of being socially judged by others is processed in the same part of our brain as physical pain. That's why it can literally feel painful to have to stand up and speak in front of an audience, or even for someone to speak up in a meeting. Organizations want people who challenge the status quo, who give share ideas, but if they feel like they're going to be judged by others or criticized or reprimanded, they're going to shut down. So it's the fear center of our brain that fears social pain and social judgment.

Mick Spiers: 13:49

Yeah, it's interesting. The fear of judgment shows up in so many different ways. So I tell a story Bill often about people walking around the streets wondering about people judging them for the way that they look, the way that they scuff their shoes, etc, and they they're worried about, oh, what does Bill think of me? But if we're all walking around like that, we're all just in fear of judgment of each other, and the other person is not actually even giving you a second thought. The most likely situation is that they're in their mind, they're thinking about their to do list, all the things I've got to pick up Mick on the way home, or I've got to prepare for my meeting tomorrow. The second most likely is they're worried that you're judging them. So why? Why are we walking around worried that each other's judging each other?

Bill Benjamin: 14:35

I have a I have a favorite quote on that topic. It's in our 20s and 30s, we worry about what everyone else is thinking about us in our 40s and 50s, we stopped worrying about what everyone else is thinking about us in our 60s and 70s. We realized they were never thinking about us in the first place exactly, because they're all in their head, worried about being job. How am I doing? How do I look? What am I okay? Am I like? Am I good at my job? Like? And by the way, if you can be someone who can connect with that. To get out of your own frame of reference and connect with some of those concerns and fears that people have, as particularly as a leader. Wow, that allows you to unleash people's best, right? Because you can help them overcome some of that. I mean, you have to start with yourself, but then when you can bring that to others, it's incredibly powerful.

Mick Spiers: 15:18

Yeah. And the final thing I'd say on it is that for the very small percentage of people that are judgmental, because, yeah, there are some jerks in the world, there's that's we can't avoid that. But for the ones that are judgmental, it speaks more of their character than yours. So why worry about it?

Bill Benjamin: 15:35

Absolutely. I mean, by the way, I mean it still hurts, it's still hard, but I've become much less, I personalize it much less. If I feel that someone's judging me or I feel it, yeah, I just I don't let it bother me as much.

Mick Spiers: 15:48

Yeah. All right. Now, getting back to the research, I want to talk about the impact, and you've seen both sides of this bill. I'm going to ask two questions, what is the impact of the avoidance behavior the limiting factor. And then when you've worked with companies that you've managed to do the breakthrough, and they come through the other and what does that unlock?

Bill Benjamin: 16:11

Yeah, great, great questions. Um, so the reason last 8% moments matter more than others is because of the cortisol effect. The cortisol effect is that when there is tension, pressure, uncertainty, conflict, cortisol gets released into our brains. It does a number of things, but one of the things it does is it causes memories to sear in. So people remember what you were doing in that difficult moment. They don't remember what you're doing in the 92% of moments when everyone's getting along and the deadlines are being met, they remember those tough moments. So how do you show up in those moments? If you avoid and and don't step in, then that's what you're modeling for people, right? If somebody's, you know, coming at you and in front of your team, you're shutting down, then that's what they learn. They learn to shut down. That's what they remember in those moments. If you're more of a make a Messer and you're getting defensive or you're interrupting people, then that's what that's what they'll remember, and that's what you know the people you're interacting with. So those blasphemers and moments matter more than others.

Mick Spiers: 17:08

So what I'm what I'm hearing here, is under those pressure cooker situations, that's that's when the culture is formed.

Bill Benjamin: 17:16

That's exactly right. So not only does it establish your reputation, that's how people remember you, by the way. That's why you can do something right nine times out of 10, but the one time you mess it up, that's what she remembers. I mean, that's what they remember like. That is those tough moments that everyone remembers So, and that's what they model. So that is where culture is established. Culture is established in the difficult moments, in those last neighbors and moments when we talk to, when we talk to, you know, leaders and organizations about culture, we talk about the importance of those last neighbors at moments.

Mick Spiers: 17:52

So let me share with you what's bouncing around in my head as you, as you talk bill, so we do talk about leadership being a great responsibility that you're responsible for the place where people are spending up to 1/3 of their life, right? So here's a great responsibility, and that you can be the difference between whether they have a good day or a very bad day. But what I'm hearing now, I use this story on the show before that, when someone goes home and they've had a bad day, and they're talking to their loved ones about their bad day, about the language that he is, right? So I'm going to use the nine times out of 10, or the we're pretty much on the 8% here. That for the nine times out of 10 where it was just a normal day, and they go home and their loved one says, Oh, how was your day today? Oh, yeah, it was good. Yeah. It was just normal, baseline, but on that one day where it was the pressure cooker, then they're coming home and going, you're not going to believe what that jerk did to me today. That's when these memories are formed. So how does that sit with you? This story of like, nine times out of 10, they're coming home going, Oh, I had an okay day that. It's that one day out of 10 where what you're not going to believe, what that jerk did to me, that's the one that's forming their view of the leader, the view of the culture.

Bill Benjamin: 19:09

Absolutely. And what's actually happening in the brain is emotions are infectious. So when you come home and you get a little bit agitated and anxious about a story about your boss that actually triggers them. They get a little bit anxious. They get cortisol released, and that's what Sears in the memories. So that does then become the story of how they think about your boss, because that's what gets stored in their brain. So that's absolutely right,

Mick Spiers: 19:35

yeah, all right, interesting, yeah. We need to, need to give the audience some ideas on what to do. I'm going to say that there's going to be people listening to this right now, Bill, there's going to be some people going sorry to swear for a second, but oh shit, I'm a make a Messer or Oh shit, I am an avoider. How do they start?

Bill Benjamin: 19:54

I mean, it starts with self awareness. It starts with recognizing why you. Are avoiding or making a mess? Why? Like, what's what's getting? Let's, let's talk about the avoiders first. What is the social pain you're afraid of looking bad, of not being liked, of not being respected, of failing, right? So there's all these things. So it's really it starts with self awareness and understanding. Why do I avoid what gets in the way if you're make a Messer again, it's kind of the same thing. It's like I didn't feel respected, I didn't feel included. They're not gonna let you know they don't like me, like we're it's all the stories we're telling ourselves that then trigger those emotions. So it starts with that self awareness and understanding why we get triggered.

Mick Spiers: 20:41

So yeah, I'm hearing two different types of emotional self awareness here, both related to needs. One is, understand your fears. So when you're when you're feeling that emotion, and in this case, fear, to notice and name it and go, Oh, hang on a second. I just avoided that conversation. Why did I avoid it? Why did I avoid it? Or I just exploded in a meeting. Why did I just explode in that meeting? So in either end, it's emotional self awareness to understand what was that emotion and to name it, notice and name it accurately, because sometimes we misname our emotions and we misunderstand it, and then what was the trigger?

Bill Benjamin: 21:23

Yeah, the other little piece of advice that really helped me was understanding that anger is a secondary emotion. To say, Oh, I just got angry. There's a reason underneath it why you got angry. You didn't feel respected. You were afraid of failing, like whatever it was, those emotional needs you talked about something not being fair. Fairness is a huge emotional lead. I mean, anybody who's raised kids, some of the first words they say, it's not fair, it's not fair. It's such a natural. So there's so many things that can trigger that anger, but if you got angry and either shut down or made a mess, explore what was underneath that anger. So that is absolutely the first step.

Mick Spiers: 22:02

It applies for positive emotions too, Bill, by the way, so emotions are information, and they're drawing your attention to either a met need or an unmet need. So a positive emotion is drawing your attention to a met need, the need for love and belonging. I feel good right now. I feel respected, I feel included, I feel so I feel happy. That's information as well. That moment that you feel angry, frustrated, whatever the case may be, it's an unmet need. The unmet need could be hunger, even, by the way, I'm really hungry, or it could be I've been disrespected, I don't feel included, I don't feel loved.

Bill Benjamin: 22:37

Another big, another big emotional need is competence. I want to look like I know what I'm doing. I want to look like I'm smart. I want to look like I'm good at my job. I want to look like so anytime somebody does, oh, they're going to make me miss a deadline. Like, anytime that's going to look bad on me, I'm not going to look competent. That's also a big one for people.

Mick Spiers: 22:59

Yeah, really good. Okay, all right, so we're starting with self awareness, we're noticing naming, and we're also unpacking it. We're not just going, Oh, I was angry today. Why was I angry? And you might need to ask the why questions, or even a satic Toyota kind of engineering approach, ask why five times to get to the real cause of what caused the emotion. What do we do next?

Bill Benjamin: 23:21

Yeah. So the second part of self awareness is to recognize when you are getting triggered. So when we did feel disrespected or we felt like we weren't going to be competent, the fight or flight kicks in as if we were, you know, in the jungle fighting tigers, but it's the same thing. And so chemicals get released into our body, adrenaline, cortisol get released. So your body's your early warning system. So I, for example, my chest gets tight, My hands shake a little bit. People talk about feeling heat in forehead or chest, you know, neck area, upset stomach. So you want to notice? Because if so, if I'm in a meeting and my hands are shaking a little bit, that tells me I'm not at my best. I'm at risk of avoiding or making a mess, of having my emotions take over. So it's that early warning system, your body.

Mick Spiers: 24:13

Yeah, that the physical sensation. I've not thought of this before much at all, Bill, but the physical manifestation of some of this is noticeable if you look for it. I'm just thinking about meetings where you started to sweat, even though the air conditioner didn't suddenly change, and all of a sudden you're you're sweating where you weren't sweating 10 minutes ago.

Bill Benjamin: 24:37

Yeah, absolutely. You're starting to feel the pressure your brain is your brain is starting to say it's there to protect you. It's saying something's wrong. And it's starting to act as though it's a tiger jumping out at you. So increased heart rate, right? It's going to start the body sensations getting you ready for fight or flight.

Mick Spiers: 24:56

Yeah, interesting. This can be part of your notice and name as well. What physical sensation Am I feeling and why am I feeling it? Yeah.

Bill Benjamin: 25:04

Yeah. Absolutely. Thoughts, emotions and physical sensations. Those are the things you want to be really aware of. But once you're in the moment, or, you know, by the way, there's two types of last 2% moments. There's the expected ones, where you go in a situation where you know the person isn't gonna like your decision. Are they gonna be unhappy with what you have to say? You're giving them feedback. But then there's the unexpected moments. And you know, on average, in our study of about 50,000 people, about 60% of the unexpected, right? You're having a perfectly fine day. Suddenly, you know, some senior leader moves the deadline on the project or someone says something that so those unexpected moments. So that is where, in those unexpected moments to notice it in your body is telling you, okay, I might be moving toward a default behavior that's not going to allow me to be as skillful. By the way, not only are you moving toward your unskillful default behaviors, but in those moments, you're actually losing cognitive ability. You're actually losing a working memory and your ability to think complex thoughts, what you really want in a moment like that, where something's coming at you. So, you know? So these were the things that I was recognizing was happening to me, right? I was getting triggered. Chemicals were getting released in my body and my brain, and I was not showing up on my best so for in that moment, once you're starting to recognize it, then what do you do? That's where we have our SOS strategy. And we to manage emotions so you can push through the discomfort and not avoid but not make a mess either. Step in skillfully. We actually developed this with the US Navy over 25 years ago. We intentionally use the SOS metaphor because it was the Navy, and it's kind of like you're sinking underwater. By the way, they have a great quote that, to me, is all about taking risks. It's it's ships are safe in the harbor, but that's not what ships are for. So when you are feeling that kind of avoidance, your SOS, the first S is stop, not as an avoidance strategy, but to disconnect from the trigger to do something so you can re engage more skillfully when you're alone, stand up, stretch, drink water, you know, take a walk, do something. Gives you some sense of calm and peace, and your amygdala will start to your emotional brain will start to relax. You'll get some working memory back. The chemicals will start to recede. You know, you're not so wound up. By the way, the draft folder and email was designed for, you know, managing emotions, right? You want to write, don't put even two lists, just in case. Save it the draft. Go for a walk. Come back. I've done this many times. Never once have I looked at that email that I wrote in a triggered state and thought, yeah, that's the email I should send that. So that's when you're alone. When you're with other people, it feels like there's not much you can do, but actually, there's quite a few things you can do. For example, you can't cry and drink water at the same time. Maybe not useful in business, pretty useful if you have young kids or grandkids, because you, if you get the four year old who's crying to drink water, it stops the crying. It's actually a great strategy, and it works.

Mick Spiers: 28:07

That's a good lesson, a parenting lesson and a leadership lesson in one Okay, good, Yep.

Bill Benjamin: 28:12

Absolutely. And it works, by the way, right up until they figure out that that's your strategy. No, Daddy, I'm not drinking water, but it demonstrates a soothing effect that water has on your physiology. So in any meeting, most of us can stop and pause for a few seconds to take a drink of water. A few other things, your fingers will start to curl, even if you aren't fully triggered into a full fist. So you can open your palms if you're sitting, you can rest them on your lap, if you are in a void mode, you will be leaning back and making yourself smaller. Just lean in, whether you're standing or sitting, kind of create that little pattern interrupt. If you are in make a mess mode, you'll be doing the object. You'll be leaning forward, lean back. So that little pattern interrupt kind of disengages the emotional brain, so your cognitive brain can re engage. So writing something down requires cognitive thoughts. So there's those little stop strategies to let you kind of disconnect from the trigger. Now, in that moment, the O is oxygenate. That's your deep conscious breath, the intake of a large amount of oxygen actually has the physiological effect of minimizing the impact of the chemicals The amygdala is released. You're nodding. You know this the power of a deep conscious breath, but we forget to do it because, by the way, the emotional system, the fight or flight system, is trying to shorten our breath. So when we take that deep conscious breath, and everybody can try right now, that actually gets some working memory back, we kind of calm down that can kind of let us push through that need, that discomfort of avoid, of avoiding or or that you know you're about to make a mess. And then finally, the last s that in the SOS is seek information, because so often we're making assumptions. We make most of our jump to judgment decisions on less than 5% of. Global Information. And by the way, we check our own thinking we can what's the best course of action. So there's so much information that we can get that again, can help us stay calm and step in more skillfully.

Mick Spiers: 30:13

Yeah, I love it. So stop oxygenate and seek more information. I really like the pattern interrupt. That was really interesting, Bill and the drinking the water, that's a big takeaway for me. But the pattern interrupt of the if I'm avoiding and I'm leaning back is to catch myself in the moment and go, Oh no, I need to lean in here. And on the opposite, if I'm about to slam my fist on the desk, to lean back and go, Okay, take a beat. Take a beat.

Bill Benjamin: 30:40

Yeah, Chris. And like, it doesn't take as much to get triggered. Can be almost immediate. It's the same. It doesn't take as much to create that little bit of space, but kind of between the stimulus and the response. And by the way, six seconds, that's the amount of time between when the emotional system processes the trigger and the neocortex can catch up. So we all can. Most of us, can respond, you know, can in any specific ways, but not respond for six seconds. So with that time, we do the low pattern interrupt, and we then take the deep breath, and then think, what information am I missing? And then, and then finally, we can start thinking about other people, gosh, why are they acting the way they're acting? What might they be feeling? What What am I doing that might be triggering them, and so then we can start to demonstrate a little bit of empathy. But you can't do it until you've managed yourself, until you've gotten rid of some of those chemicals that are in your brain, your body.

Mick Spiers: 31:32

Yeah, the empathy, taking both cognitive and emotional empathy, taking to put yourself in their shoes for a moment as well, I think is very powerful. And then they seek information to get curious, and that could be a way to also pattern interrupt the current pattern is to say to them, that was the interesting thing you just said. What Tell me more? What made that important to you?

Bill Benjamin: 31:57

Absolutely. The challenge is, when you're triggered, you're actually becoming more certain that you're right. Even you can't see as many options and you can't process as much information, you become more certain that you're right. So that shift from that certainty to curiosity is very tough and incredibly powerful, because that certainty then triggers the other person, because if you have to be right, they have to be wrong. Versus that curiosity is so powerful. The other thing that's incredibly powerful about curiosity because people often ask me, okay, like, let's say, the situation where I'm I'm managing my emotions, I'm not triggered. But the other person is, what do I do? Well, they haven't listened this podcast. They don't know about the SOS, so what can I do for them? If you ask a genuine probing question, like, Hey, what's that been like for you? What are your thoughts on that it actually requires a neocortex to engage, which automatically sues their emotional system.

Mick Spiers: 32:49

Deregulates you? Yeah.

Bill Benjamin: 32:51

You're actually helping them self regulate by asking questions. And by the way, questions also genuinely ask questions, they engage the pleasure centers of our brain. So people like being asked questions. Do people like coming on your shows? I love being on podcasts. I get to ask questions and talk, right, like so people, and then, by the way, and then, if you let them talk and you actually listen, then they feel heard. Another huge thing for people, right? They want to feel heard.

Mick Spiers: 33:18

I feel valued as well, because they are pinging that.

Bill Benjamin: 33:21

Feel valued and heard and so, yeah, there's so many reasons why shifting it, especially in the last 8% moment. This is the problem. It's so hard to do in a last 8% moment, right when there's tension, when there's pressure, to take that deep breath, to shift from I'm certain I'm right. We have to take action right away, to wait a minute. Let me be curious. Let me think about where this person is coming from. Let me hear other ideas. Let me Let's collaborate, right? It's an incredibly powerful shift and a hard one.

Mick Spiers: 33:48

Yeah, really good. All right, so the the SOS, this is great takeaway for everyone, stop oxygenate, seek more information. I think it's a really good one for the the mess makers, let's call it. It's also powerful for the avoiders as well, but it's very powerful for the mess makers. I want to come back to something else that you said, I'm going to build towards the eight, last 8% here, Bill, but I'm going to, won't go one step at a time. You mentioned before that sometimes there is a one that you're preparing for. You know that there's about to be a courageous conversation. And then you mentioned there's other times where there's just a curve ball that happens in a meeting, etc, and you get triggered in the meeting. I want to talk about those ones where people are preparing and I'm building towards how we unlock the last 8% let's imagine someone's listening to the show right now, and they're listening to your voice, Bill, and they're going shit, yeah, I've really avoided something I need to say to my boss or to my team member or to my peer, I'm going to do it today. I'm going to do it today. How does someone prepare for that courageous conversation where they're going to step into the breach and say the thing that's been on their mind for two weeks but they haven't said it?

Bill Benjamin: 35:00

I mean, by the way, that's a great question. That is the number one question I get asked every time I speak or deliver a workshop is, how do I have a last 8% conversation? There's going to be a whole section in the book about this. In the meantime, I have written an article called six strategies for having a last 8% conversation, and I'll just share I wouldn't, we don't have, we can have a whole show on just the on just that, but I'll share a couple of the key ones. One is, is your preparation is to think about what might be going on for the other person. What might they be thinking? What might they be experiencing? What's their story that they're telling themselves? What are their fears? What are their concerns? So you want to start by thinking about that other person, and you want to be really clear. What is the last 8% that you need to say before you leave that meeting, regardless of how the other person reacts, because we can't always control how the person reacts. We can do some things to make it more likely they'll be open and not get defensive, but we don't. We can't guarantee that. So be really clear. So those two things, one, think about what's going on for the other person, and then what do you what be clear? What we need to say when you start the conversation, clarify a positive intention for the conversation. If you just start into I need to talk to you about what happened at the meeting yesterday. You reacted. If you start making statements, and they don't know what your intention is. They start thinking, I'm in trouble. They're mad at me. I'm not going to get my bonus. This is going to affect my performance for you, like, versus, hey, I want to talk to you about what happened in the meeting, because I really feel like you know you're my top performer, and I want to help you kind of get from A to A plus. And I think there's a learning opportunity for you there, so the person knows ever going to talk about what happened in the meeting? But meeting, but the frame is, you know, this person's here to help me. They want me to be better. I'm not in trouble. I'm not, you know, so, or it could just be, let's say it's a peer that you're having some difficulty with. Hey, I want to have a really great working relationship with you, so I want to talk about how this is going when we have to, you know, do this together, and I want to make sure we're really supporting each other. You start out with clarifying a positive intention. It makes the other person's emotional brain feel safe, so it's less likely that their defenses will jump in and shut down or start getting defensive. So clarifying a positive intention. Last thing I'll share here is try to get them talking. First, try to start with open ended questions. I mean, you can name the thing that you're going to talk about, because people don't. What you don't want to do is go into a meeting that's a half an hour long kind of dance around it for 25 minutes in the last five minutes. Finally, name the thing, you know, so it's okay to name the thing Texas client once said, sometimes you just have to put the turret on the table. So say, Hey, we're going to talk about, you know, the project being late, you know. And I want to talk about how I can best support you in doing that. What are your thoughts? Ask a question. Ask, what's it been like for you ask a genuine probing question, which, again, opens them up. And a lot of times you might hear stuff you don't know about. And by the way, in a feedback conversation, sometimes people will actually self diagnose, well, you know, I've been struggling getting it in on time. I know I need to do better at that. They give themselves the feedback. You don't even have to. So it's Yeah, so just start by asking questions.

Mick Spiers: 38:26

Yeah, good. All right. So let me break it down a little bit so, and by the way, I'm going to stick my hand up here and say this has been one of my weaknesses as a leader through my career, the avoidance and I, I wouldn't say I've mastered it yet, even Bill, I have to consciously and intentionally work on this every day, but I do step into the breach, and I've, I've put the avoidance behind me, but it's, it's through practice and intention. So the preparation I'm thinking about, what is that 8% that I haven't told the person so I've got clarity in my mind before I start and then hearing some perspective, taking and empathy to think about, okay, if I was in their shoes, right? And I'm going to say that for the majority of people in the planet, everyone is the hero in their own story. So they have their own perspective as to why they're right, and every and everyone else is wrong and unfair, right? So so some perspective taking. I'm going to add one that I always remind myself of, Bill, and I'll test it with you here as well. I also think about how would I feel if I was on the receiving end of not getting that feedback right? So if I was doing something wrong every day for six months and someone didn't tell me, I'd be mortified. I'd be mortified. So I've got to have the courage to tell that person, because they deserve it. They deserve to know that, that they're doing something otherwise because they can't fix what they don't know about

Bill Benjamin: 39:54

I love that. That's especially good for the avoiders, because it gives you a sense of purpose, of why. Why do I need to push through this? What's actually in their best interest? So that's that is especially powerful for avoiders. I love that.

Mick Spiers: 40:08

Okay. And then as we start, we're going to set an intention and say, hey, I want to talk to you about so the meeting yesterday, because I really believe in you. So you're setting a positive intent. I believe in you, and I want to see you unlock your full potential and achieve everything you can in this company kind of thing. So you're setting a positive intention, and then you're inviting them to talk. So how do you think yesterday's meeting went? What do you think went well? What don't? What do you think didn't go well? What would you do differently if you had your time again? Yeah, yeah. Really good. And what you're doing there is you're testing a bit of self awareness as well, as well as being curious to go, oh yeah, I was really worried. You say about my kids, or, you know, whatever you you know, find out something that you didn't know as well.

Bill Benjamin: 40:52

Exactly. Yeah. Well, thank you. What well summarized

Mick Spiers: 40:57

Right. Now I want to add something, Bill. I'm going to say that if you've got 8% to share with them, there's a damn good chance that they've got 8% to share with you. How do you draw out, if someone has been avoiding telling you what you need to hear, how do you draw out from them their last 8%?

Bill Benjamin: 41:17

Yeah, I mean, so I love that example. By the way, a last favor to that moment for most of us is somebody giving us critical feedback. So the very first thing is you have to model being open, not getting defensive, listening. It doesn't mean agreeing or being wrong. It just means you are open and listen. Because if you especially as the leader, but even if you're not the leader, if you're not open to feedback, if you get defensive, that triggers their emotional system, they shut down. They're not gonna it doesn't feel safe for them to speak up. So the number one thing as a leader is to model being open to feedback, listen, be curious. Again. I think people confuse empathy for agreement or sympathy. That you have to give in just because you hear, just because you Oh, I get oh, I guess I shouldn't. You know, I shouldn't have such high demands of you. It's like, no, that's you're not giving in. You're not being wrong, but you are listening and you are being open to the feedback. And by the way, most times there's something in the feedback that is correct from their perspective, that you could then work on so to then take and say, gosh, thank you for that feedback. I can see where I impacted you. I want to work on that. I want to get better on that huge so, yeah, I know that. And creating that culture where you have a team who are willing to give each other feedback, who are willing to give you feedback that psychological safety is incredibly powerful on teams.

Mick Spiers: 42:46

So I'm going to put two things together here, Bill and see what you think. I think there's an element there where we have to hold space for someone and allow them to to get out what's on their mind. But the interesting part of what you said there, and coming back to the fear of judgment, again, is your reaction and what I want to put to your bill, and I'm testing this at the same time as saying it when we talk about your last 8% is when you have that crucial conversation with someone, they've highly unlikely to say the Deep burning issue in the first sentence, right? They're building up the courage to tell you what's really on your mind, and they're going to start with something softer, and if you react poorly to that very first thing to say that they say they're not going to tell you the big rock.

Bill Benjamin: 43:40

Correct. Correct we talk so we have an assessment where we can assess where a team in an organization is on our culture map, which we can talk about in a separate podcast. But one of the questions that almost every team scores low on is we name Inconvenient Truth, difficult to discuss issues on this team. So when someone brings up something you know that others don't want to hear or is difficult, if other people are reacting, then it just shuts everyone down, and everyone knows what happens when inconvenient truths aren't named, then the issue isn't addressed, then there's a meeting after the meeting talk about what wasn't said in the meeting. So it's very ineffective to have a team that aren't discussing the tough issues or having the meetings of all the meetings offline to discuss the thing that they wouldn't talk about in the meeting.

Mick Spiers: 44:29

Yeah, excellent, Bill. I want to add one, one more little thing here before we we start wrapping up, and that is, there's going to be people that are listening to this show, that are that are catching themselves in one or more of the mess maker or the avoider, or situationally, they might be both. They've got a default behavior already that people are used to. If they are going to reset, we've spoken about what they can do. Reset. How do you communicate this to your team? Like, if you if you're going to start resetting the culture around you, you need the team to trust you that I yeah, look sticking up your hand and saying, I've made a moment of realization that I've made a few mistakes here team, and I want to correct it. How do you get that correction? Otherwise, the team already go, ah, that's just bill. He's always like this, that they've already hardwired what they think of you. How do you start showing them? No, no, I'm trying to work on this.

Bill Benjamin: 45:33

I mean, number one is truly, genuine vulnerabilities for not just, you know, I'm saying the words, it's like, I've messed this up. Good example for me was I, I still struggle with interrupting, but I'm much better at it, you know, maybe 810, years ago, I had a team, and they gave me feedback that I was interrupting, and I was like, Oh my gosh, I am so sorry. Like, I feel so bad. I i do i get, you know, I get uptight, I get triggered, and I think I'm right, and I want to, and I jump in too fast. So that's one thing, is just to really, genuinely be vulnerable. Number two is allow them to hold you accountable. So what I did was I said, Look, if you guys catch me interrupting in a meeting, and by the way, not just with us, but with anyone, just say, Hey, Bill, let's slow down. That was the signal to me where they could say in the moment, Bill, you're interrupting without just so find ways to, you know, and then I would ask them a month later, how am I doing with the interrupting? So you're actually giving them some autonomy in helping hold you accountable. It's incredible. It works number one and two, it's incredible modeling, by the way, I have done the same thing with my teenage daughters. For anyone with kids, being honest, being vulnerable, Daddy made a mistake. Oh, Daddy's afraid of that. Daddy didn't do good at that. And I'm going to get better, and I want you to let me know who I'm doing. Oh, just so powerful with any human, especially your kids.

Mick Spiers: 46:57

Outstanding bill, all right, so this has been a great conversation. You mentioned about your your culture map. I would like to invite you back. I think we can do an entire episode on your culture map and the connection.

Bill Benjamin: 47:10

There's an entire episode on culture and the Culture Map and how you create a environment. You know, that's where people are stepping in. You know, they're not avoiding but they're not making a mess, yeah. How do you create that environment? There's a whole podcast there for sure.

Mick Spiers: 47:24

All right, so let's have, let's have you back in the in the near future and go through that one. I want to summarize the three key pillars from our conversation today. Have a think about whether you are a make a Messer or you're an avoider. And what's driving that, the emotional intelligence to go, Well, why did I avoid that today? Or why did I have that make a mess a moment? Have that out so that you can work on it. The second one is, is then around our ability to do the SOS in the moment. So stop oxygenate, seek information. Use some pattern interruptions that if you're about to default in one direction, if you're about to lean back, lean in. If you're about to lean in, lean back. The SOS is really powerful.

Bill Benjamin: 48:12

Absolutely and use your body to let you know when you need to do the SOS. It's telling you, hey, time to do the SOS before your brain will necessarily know.

Mick Spiers: 48:21

Very good. And then the ultimate goal here is, what we're trying to draw out is the last 8% that last 8% that you haven't been saying. And guess what? The other people have also got their last 8% so what we want to do is try and draw it out from them. And in a great culture and a great team, people are not avoiding those last 8% conversations. They're they're having it with open communication with, I'm not going to say without fear. I'm going to say despite fear. Despite fear. They're having those conversations because they know that it's worth it.

Bill Benjamin: 48:54

Yeah, great. Great quote I'll sum up on courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is positive action in the face of fear.

Mick Spiers: 49:01

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Positive, yeah. That's it. Brilliant. Bill, all right, now I'm going to take us to our Rapid Round. This is the same four questions we ask all of our guests. Bill, so what's the one thing you know now? Bill Benjamin, that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Bill Benjamin: 49:16

I'm not as awesome as I think I am. I'm not perfect. I'm I'm a flawed human being, and that's okay. I need work, right? It's okay, and I need work.

Mick Spiers: 49:30

All three of those together. You're not as awesome as you think you are. It's okay to be not as awesome as you think you are, and we're all the work in progress. I love it, Bill, what's your favorite book?

Bill Benjamin: 49:41

I love awareness by Anthony de Mello, because I talked a lot about a lot of this in a very provocative way. I'm also good to great from a business book standpoint, we actually reread that last year, and on our leadership team, there's so many great things in that book.

Mick Spiers: 49:56

And what's your favorite quote you've given us a few good. Quotes today. But what's your favorite quote?

Bill Benjamin: 50:02

Well, being Canadian, I'm going to say Wayne Gretzky said you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

Mick Spiers: 50:10

That's one of my favorites. I love it. Okay, all right. Brilliant. And finally, Bill, there's going to be people that are just blown away by this. The book is coming out soon.

Bill Benjamin: 50:19

It's actually not soon. It's about a year away, I'm afraid to say. But if you want access to some of this content, there is a Harvard Business Review article called The Secret of hyper Secret to Building high performing teams. And you don't need a subscription to Harvard Business Review. They give you five free articles a month. Looking that up, they can also go to our website, I hhp.com, Institute for Health and Human potential.com, and then I'm also very active on LinkedIn. Bill Benjamin on LinkedIn.

Mick Spiers: 50:48

Outstanding Bill, it's been a great pleasure having you on the show. We're inviting you back so we can do a deep dive into the Culture Map and this quadrant of courage and connection. Thank you so much for sharing your your wisdom today, your experience, but also such an actionable insight that we can all work on starting immediately. Thank you so much, Bill.

Bill Benjamin: 51:10

Thanks. Mick, it was a great interview. Appreciate it.

Mick Spiers: 51:14

As we wrap up this amazing conversation with Bill Benjamin, there are two leadership patterns worth sitting with. The first is the mess maker, those moments where emotion takes over and we react in ways we later regret. The second is the avoider, those moments where we feel the discomfort rising and choose silence instead of honesty. Bill's work reminds us that both behaviors come from the same place, not a lack of care, not bad intent, but a lack of emotional awareness in the moment, high performing leaders don't eliminate emotion. They get better at noticing it. Sooner they ask themselves, what am I feeling right now? What is this emotion? Why this emotion? Why this emotion? Now? What is the emotion trying to draw my attention to, and what was the trigger? And this is where Bill offers a simple, practical tool leaders can use in real time. SOS stop oxygenate and seek information. Stop, pause, before you react or retreat. Oxygenate, take a breath, calm the nervous system and create just enough space to think and seek information. What's really happening here? What story am I telling myself What conversation actually needs to be, had that pause, that awareness is where the last 8% lives. So here's the invitation for you. Which pattern do you recognize more in yourself? The mess maker or the avoider, and what conversation this week might require you to stop oxygenate and seek information before you respond, because Leadership isn't tested when things are easy. It's tested in those emotionally charged moments, and how you lead yourself there shapes how others experience your leadership. In the next episode, we're going to be joined by the amazing Hugh Thomas, who's going to talk to us about our fear of change and what we can do to overcome it. You've been listening to The Leadership Project. If today sparked an insight, don't keep it to yourself. Share it with one other person who would benefit from listening to the show. A huge thank you to Gerald Calibo for his tireless work editing every episode, and to my amazing wife, Sei, who does all the heavy lifting in the background to make this show possible. None of this happens without them around here. We believe leadership is a practice, not a position that people should feel, seen, heard, valued and that they matter, that the best leaders trade ego for empathy, certainty for curiosity and control for trust. If that resonates with you, please subscribe on YouTube and on your favorite podcast app, and if you want more, follow me on LinkedIn and explore our archives for conversations that move you from knowing to doing Until next time, lead with curiosity, courage and care.