Inquiry Over Advocacy
Dial up questions, dial down your case — then check if you still disagree
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 95%
Loktev's default conversational stance, and the mechanism behind what colleagues described as his 'Jedi' ability to get hard things done. Instead of entering a meeting with a position and supporting bullets, he enters with prepared questions grounded in the genuine belief that he may be missing information. Advocacy is deliberately deferred until after inquiry has done its work — and sometimes it is never needed, because his own mind changed.
Origin
Loktev's own framing, used throughout his Airbnb tenure and now as an investor. He notes the same stance in Brian Chesky's decision-making rooms (Chesky opened with 'a ton of questions' before advocating) and Lenny Rachitsky links it to Ami Vora, CPO at Faire, who advocates the same starting-with-questions approach.
Core principles
- 01Approach every conversation with curiosity, not with a case to defend.
- 02Believe, genuinely, that there may be information you do not have.
- 03Advocacy before inquiry means both sides talk past each other.
- 04Being heard is a precondition for anyone changing their mind — including you.
- 05Saying no dogmatically, without listening first, is not a strategy.
How to run it
- 1
Prepare questions, not bullets
Before a contentious meeting, do not draft your view plus supporting arguments. Draft the questions that come from genuine curiosity about what the other side knows and you do not.
Pro tip If your prep doc is a list of reasons you are right, you have prepared for the wrong meeting.
- 2
Dial up inquiry, tone down advocacy
Open with the questions. Keep asking until you understand why the other person feels strongly. Absorb the information rather than queueing your rebuttal.
- 3
Use talk-time as your self-check
When you notice you are talking too much, interrupt yourself: take a beat, and ask a question instead. Talking volume is the real-time signal that advocacy has taken over.
Pro tip Loktev literally tells himself mid-conversation: wait — inquire, dial down advocacy.
Watch out The trigger point is a bodily reaction to a bad idea. That urge to shut it down immediately is exactly the moment to ask instead.
- 4
Re-check your position, then advocate
Once the other person feels heard and you have absorbed the new information, ask whether you still hold the same view. If you do, that is when you begin to advocate — and now you can advocate against what they actually believe.
Watch out You may not change your mind, and that is fine. Inquiry is not a politeness ritual for pretending to be open.
In the wild
Facing widespread internal disagreement about moving the whole Airbnb marketplace from request-to-book to Instant Book, Loktev ran a Q&A with the entire company. Rather than advocating for the change, he asked the concerned employees what their main questions were, then tackled them one by one.
→ The approach was disarming — embracing the negativity and the questions defused the confrontation and let the change proceed.
Loktev pushes back on the 'ivory tower' reading of Airbnb's top-down model. In the rooms where hard decisions were made, Brian Chesky opened with a huge volume of questions and listened before advocating — and frequently changed his mind.
→ Loktev says he never felt unheard across a decade, despite Airbnb being characterised externally as an autocratic, top-down product org.
Common mistakes
Preparing a view and its supporting bullets
The standard PM meeting prep — here is my position, here are the three reasons — guarantees you enter in advocacy mode and never learn anything. Loktev calls this flatly the wrong way to approach it.
Using questions as a rhetorical device
If the inquiry is theatre — asking questions you already know the answer to, to set up your case — people detect it and the disarming effect disappears. The premise must be a real belief that you might be missing something.
Is it for you?
Best for
Product leaders and ICs who need to say no, change direction, or win a contested decision without positional authority.
Not ideal for
Genuine emergencies where a decision must be made in seconds and there is no time to absorb new information.
From the transcript
“the framework that I've always used was inquiry versus advocacy”
“I inquire first. I dial up inquiry, I tone down my advocacy.”
“Prepare the questions that come from a place of curiosity of the things that you want to know more about and you want to learn…”
From the episode
Airbnb’s Vlad Loktev on embracing chaos, inquiry over advocacy, poking the bear, and “impact, impact, impact” (Partner at Index Ventures, Airbnb GM/VP Product)