Ask HN: CEO wants us to fill out NOT ANONYMOUS survey that only he can read
I find this odd and suspicious. Should I be worried? How should I handle the situation?
I gave him the report. He was surprised when he read it because he didn't think it was like me at all. But then I had answered every question as if he was reading the answers. This kind of situation is entirely predictable unfortunately.
At least in your case he's not pretending it's anonymous.
In most cases it was a successful and enjoyable activity, and there wasn't this confidentiality issue because we structured around that.
However I also made it clear that the whole point was understanding how to embrace differences. So sharing one's personal reported result, while optional, was done a lot.
But in a couple of cases, people like the boss took the activity way too seriously, no matter what caveats or warnings they received. So either the (non)-sharer or the requester raised the stakes for themselves without realizing what they were doing, and I had to have a talk with them.
It's not really a good idea to seriously rely on results from a test with some known, significant, and published (by the authors) accuracy, validity, and test-retest error. This is why the "reported result" is generally considered inferior on its own. It's also known to repeat back to you what you tell it, but in different words / models.
So, since the boss may decide to raise the stakes like that and make things awkward, etc--these days along with a bunch of other colleagues in the field I use a format that's more like a flexible, open-ended sorting exercise. It's less about who you are, and more about ways you might tend to think about things, for example.
This works around the issues above, and naturally accommodates other conclusions, like yep, some people will rate themselves differently here at work than they would at home in private, for example.
But also: We can train people to recognize the processes that they use to communicate and to take in information. Thus it doesn't matter so much what they think they "are", or what someone else thinks. The process speaks for itself. It's no longer an identity issue so much.
It's an interesting field in which there have been a lot of changes since the personality tests of the 1960s...
Is this a 10 person company and you have a personal relationship with the CEO? Then say whatever you'd feel comfortable saying in a private meeting (within reason).
Is it a 200 person company and the CEO doesn't know your name? Probably safe to keep it that way, keep the answers bland and the scores 4s and 5s.
The safe thing to do is default to being bland and only deviate if you think it will be received well. I've worked with a CEO that I trusted not to use my honest feedback against me, but gossip travels fast. It's not like you're going to get a raise out of anything you say so what's the point?
I would shoot straight. Not once in my career have I ever suffered for an honest assessment given humbly. And you'll sleep better at night for it.
Same. It is frightening how many comments point to the exact opposite, presumably with the ulterior motive that this increases the chance of self-preservation.
But at the same time nothing can be improved by this. Although a team should have exactly this as a goal: improvement of the product/service.
Your personal goal should be to satisfy whoever writes your performance review.
Obviously this doesn't apply in individual pursuits like swimming [edit] or in situations where the coach is beholden to other parties (a paying audience).
[edit] To clarify: A coach should incentivize things they believe win games. An athlete should do those things so that the coach gives them playtime. An athlete should also promote the fact that they are doing those things to the coach.
It's valuable to provide people with context when giving advice from personal experience. The person hearing the advice needs to understand how the situation you presented mirrors theirs and also have an idea of how similarly they are going to be perceived compared to how you were.
Same here. People also learn they can trust you to tell them the truth and help them figure out a solution.
However, I have a low tolerance for bad work environments so YMMV but if you can't be honest with people or trust them, you probably want to look for an exit.
I would too. What's the point of not sharing the results with anyone.
>Should I be worried?
Depends on the survey questions, and what your perception of the survey results will do. Can you share some more details here? Are they all manadatory. All in all, you are likely a good person so I would advise, dont worry.
>How should I handle the situation? Read the survey, understand how it makes YOU feel.
Sometimes I feel that it is always best to "not say anything, if you don't have anything good to say"
In your responses, avoid saying anything "that would put anyone at odds with anyone else". (I learned this quote from a principal of a K-5 school I once dated)
* Never trust a survey to be truly anonymous *
Sure, you can send google surveys that will tell you they don't collect your username and you can trust that. However, a lot of surveys still collect information like your IP address. Unless you're sitting in the office and know for a 100% certainty that your reported IP address will be the same as everyone else... you're at risk. Even then, unless the survey is from a trusted vendor like surveymonkey, you're at risk of the URL being tagged (assuming you know what good/bad URLs from SurveyMonkey even look like).
In the past I've been asked to figure out who completed an anonymous survey based on IP address and it was not hard nor time consuming. For someone in IT or Security, there is plenty of information sources for cross-referencing.
Unless you don't care about your job...Always answer any corporate survey as if the CEO themselves is talking to you in person.
Don't answer questions you don't feel comfortable answering, for whatever reason. If that's a problem for the CEO then it's their problem; your integrity is worth more than your job, right?
Meritocracy is a lie, competence is circumstance, self reliance is antisocial, criminality is environment. We are all exactly the same and any difference is due to the outside. You are better than no one. Nothing within yourself gives you any more integrity than any other person, so you might as well do what any other gray person would- your job.
Even "anonymous" surveys can be deanonymized though. I have had multiple times in my career where management asked to talk to me about responses I had written in nominally anonymous surveys. Luckily, nothing too negative came out of it - but it's something to be aware of.
Now, if he's giving the impression it's anonymous but it's not, that's another kettle of fish.
It's still 0 information, but more convenient for you
Individual surveys are the antithesis of coming together to solve problems. You're basically hoping that other people will say the same things as you, and that the people in charge will come up with a good strategy to fix them.
If he chases responses from people that haven't filled out the survey, and you feel like it could hurt your standing to abstain:
2) Fill out the survey with the most egregious wall of brown-nosing that he could possibly want to hear, making sure to talk about how he's clearly the brain of a Stephen Hawking in the body of a Chris Hemsworth. You could also point out how a leader of this caliber only comes along once in a generation and how lucky you are to just be present to witness it.
There are other options, but none that are of no risk to you, and why take that on? It's an odd and suspicious request, but that's encountering other human beings in the workplace.
(Maybe employees have feedback on mid-managers, their team, or something else the company is doing, and don't feel they can raise it lower on the org chart, or haven't been successful at that.)
If it turns out employees do have something to say, and not comfortable with everyone hearing it, then they have to ask themselves how much they trust the CEO to honor the confidentiality commitment, and not throw the messenger under the bus.
I'd guess intent of not-anonymous might be that be CEO wants people willing to stand behind what they say, which would be a desirable property of an organization. Or maybe it makes the information more actionable.
Also be aware that company staff might be able to determine what individuals say, due to "endpoint security" mechanisms, other IT implementation, trivial traffic analysis, etc.
I would be professional. Don't criticize the silliness of the exercise. Treat it like it's the most ingenious idea you've ever been asked to participate in. Mention how much you admire his vision and how grateful you are for blah blah blah. Don't go overboard though. Some CEOs are smarter than they look.
Do you not care if you keep working here? Then fill out the survey honestly, OR refuse to fill it out at all.
Treat this as an exercise in clear thinking and expression.
All the teams then get a summary of their results and go over them and decide what would be best for them to focus on in the upcoming year.
The big thing for us has been discussing what the 1-5 mean, especially the 4 or 5. A lot of people are hesitant to grade something at a 5 because they can think of ways to make that better - but you should already be in an environment of continual improvement so you know you can always make something better. Therefore for us a 5 means it's going well and there isn't anything to address that the normal continual improvement process wouldn't address. A 4 then means mostly well, but it's not quite where it should be, a 3 means its well enough, and a 2 or under means here's an opportunity to improve things that will have a big impact on our processes.
It's all about identifying your sore spots and where to expend your effort at getting better.
The point is to not stand out.
Just answer them in job-appropriate tones.
Anonymous feedback generally matters at a time for criticism.
It's bait.
I would hurry up and fill it out if i were you.