Despite all the talk about feedback at Netflix, this type of candor would not fly. A climate of candor doesn’t mean anything goes. The first few times Netflix employees gave me feedback I felt so startled I thought the rules of feedback were something like, “say what’s on your mind, to hell with the cost.” But Netflix managers invest significant time teaching their employees the right and wrong way to give feedback. They have documents explaining what effective feedback looks like. They have sections of training programs where people learn how and practice giving and receiving it.

At most companies, the boss is there to approve or block the decisions of employees. This is a surefire way to limit innovation and slow down growth. At Netflix, we emphasize that it’s fine to disagree with your manager and to implement an idea she dislikes. We don’t want people putting aside a great idea because the manager doesn’t see how great it is. That’s why we say at Netflix: DON’T SEEK TO PLEASE YOUR BOSS. SEEK TO DO WHAT IS

“INNOVATION CYCLE STEP 1: FARM FOR DISSENT . . . Finally, one VP said to me, “You’re so intense when you believe in something, Reed, that I felt you wouldn’t hear me. I should have laid down on the tracks screaming that I thought it would fail. But I didn’t.”

The culture at Netflix had been sending the message to our people that, despite all our talk about candor, differences of opinion were not always welcome. That’s when we added a new element to our culture. We now say that it is disloyal to Netflix when you disagree with an idea and do not express that disagreement. By withholding your opinion, you are implicitly choosing to not help the company.

The more you actively farm for dissent, and the more you encourage a culture of expressing disagreement openly, the better the decisions that will be made in your company. This is true for any company of any size in any industry.

For smaller initiatives, you don’t need to farm for dissent, but you’d still be wise to let everyone know what you’re doing and to take the temperature of your initiative. Let’s go back to your employee, Sheila, the woman who came to you with an idea you’re against. After explaining why you don’t agree, you can suggest that she socialize the idea with her peers and other leaders in the company. This means that she sets up multiple meetings, where she outlines her proposal and enters into discussions in order to stress-test her thinking and collect numerous opinions and data points before making her decision. Socializing is a type of farming for dissent with less emphasis on the dissent and more on the farming.