July 21, 2026
Hi Everyone,
In 2011, Reed Hastings split Netflix in two and moved the DVD business into a separate company called Qwikster. Customers hated it. Netflix lost 800,000 subscribers in a single quarter, the stock fell 77%, and Hastings killed the plan after 23 days.
Plenty of people inside Netflix had thought Qwikster was a bad idea. They watched it happen anyway, because Hastings sounded so sure. Netflix leaders now have to "farm for dissent" and deliberately collect disagreement before any big decision.
When the person in charge sounds certain, people keep their doubts to themselves. Here are five ways to change that in your own meetings.
5 ways to hear the bad news early
1. Say this right after you present your decision: The sentence comes from Amy Edmondson, a Harvard professor who studies why teams stay silent: "I may miss something / I might be wrong. I need to hear from you." Make your case in the meeting, say the sentence, and give people time to answer, even when the pause gets uncomfortable.
2. Put a number on how sure you are: When you present the decision, say your real level of confidence out loud: "I'm confident this has about a 60/40 chance of being right." The number tells the team how much room there is to change your mind. Researchers ran studies with almost 5,000 people to test how we judge someone who talks this way. People trusted them as much as the ones who sounded certain, and often preferred them.
3. Speak last: Your view carries the most weight in the room. Once you share it, people tend to agree with it, so let everyone else go first. Coinbase runs its decision meetings this way. People vote before anyone speaks, and the person who owns the decision gives their view at the end. If you want to go further, ask one person to come to the meeting with the case against the plan.
4. Tell people when you'll decide: Without a deadline, the best objection can arrive after the decision is already made. Say "I'll make the final call on Friday. Until then, tell me what you think we're missing." Everyone knows when to speak up by, and you still decide on time.
5. Say it when someone changes your mind: When a point someone raised moves the decision, tell the team, and give the person credit. What gets rewarded gets repeated – people speak up more when they see it makes a difference.
Try this in your next meeting
The next time you present a decision, close with this: "I'm about 70/30 on this. I may miss something, so I need to hear from you. I'll make the final call on Friday."
That’s three of the five practices in one sentence, and nobody in the room mistakes it for indecision.
Go deeper
👉 Coinbase: How we make decisions at Coinbase — The meeting format that keeps the boss's opinion from deciding everything, written by the CEO.
👉 Amy Edmondson: Building a psychologically safe workplace — The TEDx Talk with three things to say if you want your team to speak up, from the researcher who named the problem.
👉 Wharton: Do people inherently dislike uncertain advice? — What almost 5,000 people revealed about whether saying "60/40" makes you look weaker.
👉 Owens & Hekman: How does leader humility influence team performance? — What happened in 161 teams when the leader's humility rubbed off on everyone else.
Coming up tomorrow
Tomorrow, we'll cover the short private memo that keeps difficult feedback clear and calm.
That’s it for today. Thanks for reading.