When the problem is not system anonymity, but a lack of trust in the culture.
This was almost 10 years ago.
And I’m still surprised by the experience.
Here’s the context: we were a 3-person startup with a product we truly believed in but almost nobody knew.
We had the opportunity to present the product to a large company: big logo, big building, big budget.
We made the presentation. Motivation 1000. Everything went perfectly.
But the client conversation took a turn:
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Now is not the right time – they said.
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I understand – I replied -. You can start slowly, perhaps with an initial anonymous feedback survey. Let people feel heard. Then evaluate climate, 90º feedback, etc.
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The product is great, but it won’t work here – they concluded.
And then the anecdote happened.
A team member came up to me quietly — as if we were organising something illegal — and said:
“They put a suggestion box at the entrance.
But nobody uses it.
There’s a camera pointing right at that area.
People are afraid they’ll see who puts a paper in.”
I don’t know if anyone ever checked the recordings, I don’t think so.
But that was irrelevant.
The company had managed to create an environment where giving opinions was perceived as a risk.
The myth of absolute anonymity
Ten years later, I still see digital versions of the same phenomenon.
Companies obsessed with technical anonymity, but not with trust.
“Does the system know who I am?”
“What if they cross-check my answers?”
“What if there are consequences afterwards?”
But when the culture is based on fear, logic loses to suspicion.
The control paradox
Organisations that want to exert the most control (misunderstood) are the ones that get the least real information.
Because perceived control reduces honesty.
And without honesty, there is no valid data.
And without valid data, management makes blind decisions.
Open feedback ? Non-constructive feedback
It’s important to clarify something.
Defending more open feedback doesn’t mean promoting chronic complaints or disrespect. Open feedback and constructive feedback are not mutually exclusive.
On the contrary:
The more psychological safety, the higher the message quality, less gossip, and more mature conversation.
The alternative is what we saw that day: opinions circulating in hallways… but never entering the data.