Here’s how to avoid the traps that inhibit a questioning culture in many organizations:

1. Avoid Using Questions Like a Hammer. In companies that swing the questioning pendulum too far in the direction of intense inquiry, you often find know-it-alls using questions as a way to stroke their ego and show off. When questions are used as a hammer to drive an existing viewpoint rather than as a flashlight to shine light on new ones, you don’t elicit productive reflection. To remedy this, focus on empowering rather than disempowering questions, which we’ll outline in the ModEl Practices section of this chapter. When in doubt, offer a healthy mix of authentic empathy and sharp curiosity in your questions. I once offered the following private feedback to a constant questioner who was grandstanding a bit and creating unneeded tension in the room: ‘Wisdom is whatever is left after you’ve run out of your opinions. Be careful not to use questions as a means of just expressing a strongly held belief.’

1. Know When It’s Time for Questioning and When It’s Time for Efficiency in Decision-making and Execution. A questioning culture can slow things down and, if it’s a hierarchical organization like the military, it can lead to confusion in strategy or lack of leadership direction. So it’s important to recognize if your organization isn’t built for questioning at times when the pressure is on, deadlines are looming, and stakes are high.

3. Foster Candor and Psychological Safety. Part of the reason many employees don’t feel comfortable asking tough questions is a fear of reprisal for being a ‘troublemaker’—or even losing their job. Author Edgar Schein poses a very important question that leaders can be asked as a measure to determine the level of psychological safety in an organization: ‘If I am about to make a mistake, will you tell me?’ If there is not enough candor and safety built into an organization’s culture to honestly answer yes, then the next question becomes, ‘What do we need to do differently to develop and create that kind of culture?’ Without it, people may take a less candid CYA (Cover Your Ass) approach to communication.

4. Be Clear That Alignment Is the Ultimate Goal of Questioning. A questioning culture is not synonymous with democratic decision making, although they’re often confused to be the same. Companies that do this well make very clear when it’s the right time for questions and potential disagreements and when it’s time to align. It’s critical to be explicit about this. Pat Lencioni’s book Five Dysfunctions of a Team (which we used as an Airbnb leadership team) gives good direction on how to clarify the difference between debate and alignment.

5. Make Sure Senior Leaders Are Actively Engaged in the Questioning Process. If senior leaders don’t actively take part in the questions and debate, whether it’s because they’re not in the room or because they are preoccupied on their phones or laptops, it sends a deadening signal to everyone else. Additionally, when a truth has been uncovered through the questioning process, but senior leadership doesn’t see it or take action, this can dissuade energy expended by the group in a future debate.

“So, yes, pay close attention to other people’s reactions. These reactions will be excellent raw material to help you understand the dent you are making in the world. When someone’s reaction wasn’t quite what you wanted, honor their reaction and then think through which actions of yours they were reacting to.

Even more important, when someone’s reaction was exactly what you wanted—they loved your call, your email, your presentation, your singing voice—spend a ton of time being curious with them about their reaction. Ask them why they felt the way they did, what worked for them, when they leaned in, what grabbed their attention. You’re doing this not to fish for praise, but to learn more and more about who you are when you are at your best. You are using their reaction to what worked to become ever more expert at turning your loves into contribution.

Giving Feedback

1. AIM TO ASSIST: Feedback must be given with positive intent. Giving feedback in order to get frustration off your chest, intentionally hurting the other person, or furthering your political agenda is not tolerated. Clearly explain how a specific behavior change will help the individual or the company, not how it will help you. “The way you pick your teeth in meetings with external partners is irritating” is wrong feedback. Right feedback would be, “If you stop picking your teeth in external partner meetings, the partners are more likely to see you as professional, and we’re more likely to build a strong relationship.”

2. ACTIONABLE: Your feedback must focus on what the recipient can do differently. Wrong feedback to me in Cuba would have been to stop at the comment, “Your presentation is undermining its own messages.” Right feedback was, “The way you ask the audience for input is resulting in only Americans participating.” Even better would have been: “If you can find a way to solicit contributions from other nationalities in the room your presentation will be more powerful.”

Receiving Feedback

3. APPRECIATE: Natural human inclination is to provide a defense or excuse when receiving criticism; we all reflexively seek to protect our egos and reputation. When you receive feedback, you need to fight this natural reaction and instead ask yourself, “How can I show appreciation for this feedback by listening carefully, considering the message with an open mind, and becoming neither defensive nor angry?”

4. ACCEPT OR DISCARD: You will receive lots of feedback from lots of people while at Netflix. You are required to listen and consider all feedback provided. You are not required to follow it. Say “thank you” with sincerity. But both you and the provider must understand that the decision to react to the feedback is entirely up to the recipient.

Whether criticism or praise, it’s a leader’s job to give their team feedback all the time. But every person on the team should be hearing more about what they did well than what they could do better, or they’re going to feel deflated and unmotivated. And if you can’t find more compliments to deliver than criticism, that’s a failure in leadership—either you’re not coaching the person sufficiently, or you’ve tried and it’s not working, which means they should no longer be on the team.

These rules help your team to feel safe—especially if you practice them consistently. Consistency is one of the most important and underrated aspects of being a leader. A person can’t feel safe at work if they’re apprehensive about what version of their manager they’re going to encounter on any given day. So if you’re the boss, you need to be steady, controlling your moods so you don’t end up taking out that morning’s squabble with your spouse on a server with a wrinkled shirt.

This is the ideal—but let’s be honest: every once in a while, you’re going to mess up. When you do, apologize. There’s an inherent intensity that comes with being passionate about what you do, and on occasion, it can get the better of you. I’ve certainly expressed exasperation and disappointment in ways that weren’t textbook illustrations of how to handle a correction in the workplace. But every time, I’ve made sure to apologize—not for the feedback itself, but for the way I delivered it.

Most of us have no difficulty at all in delivering praise; that’s the fun part of being a boss. But it’s hard to criticize someone. So I spend a lot of time with my managers talking about criticism—how to deliver it, how to receive it, and maybe most important, how to think about it. We all want to be liked, and when you give someone a note about what they could be doing differently and better, you run the risk of losing their goodwill. That’s why I say there is no better way to show someone you care than by being willing to offer them a correction; it’s the purest expression of putting someone else’s needs above your own, which is what hospitality is all about. Praise is affirmation, but criticism is investment.”