It’s a standard playbook—platitudes about valuing people, portraying the company as a family, promoting open-door policies for employees to voice concerns, all with the goal of advancing commitment and loyalty. While encouraging cohesion and emotional engagement across departments can be motivational, expecting all people to behave as they would with close friends or family risks blurring professional boundaries, particularly during challenging periods.
As automation and artificial intelligence continue to reshape daily work, transparency in communication requires renewed attention in 2026. Surveys have long served as a tool to gauge team sentiment, yet assurances of anonymity are undermined when IP addresses are tracked back to respondents. Remember that surveys often adopt leading questions to nudge certain responses. Similarly, open-door policies may invite concerns to be raised, but can expose participants to subtle retaliation.At PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a 2024 Trust Survey indicated that 90 percent of executives think clients trust them, while in reality, that number is a mere 30 percent — indicating a gap of 60 percentage points. Similarly, 86 percent of executives believe employee trust is high, yet the PwC survey showed 67 percent of employees trust their employers; reportedly an increased trust gap of 18 points. A 2023 Gallup survey showed just 21 percent of employees trust leadership. Lastly, a recent ExpressVPN survey notes 74 percent of U.S. employers use digital monitoring, including real-time screen tracking (59 percent) and web browsing (62 percent). Any way one looks at it, the findings indicate a widening trust deficit.Shifting away from vague, indirect, or overly coded messaging—often used to preserve appearances—to direct communication conserves energy, reduces misinterpretation, and accelerates progress. The greater challenge lies in cultivating environments where honesty is genuinely rewarded. When employees feel safe expressing truth only under anonymity, it signals a cultural problem.
The Value of In-Person Focus Groups
As an advocate for, and one who has conducted, in-person focus groups, I have seen firsthand how effective they are in capturing real-time, unfiltered feedback without digital traces. Conducted by an independent third party, these sessions rely on using large easels and handwritten responses on paper — no names, no records. Of course, AI can later be used by that third party to analyze patterns while preserving confidentiality.
Key Benefits
Enhanced candor: group settings allow comments to blend, encouraging freer expression.
Bias mitigation: third-party participant selection and facilitation minimize internal prejudices.
Deeper insights: skilled moderators can probe in real time with questions such as:
• Why does this issue persist? • Who is most impacted? • What barriers prevent resolution? • How can we implement lasting change?
First Consider
What are the expectations and true purpose of the focus group, and how will the information gathered be utilized?• Identify the key decision-makers who will act on the information. Are these individuals always the same individuals? If so, consider introducing new perspectives.• If sensitive information emerges, will those decision-makers remain receptive?
Closing the loop by acknowledging and acting on honest feedback matters — if the goal is genuine improvement and not a mechanism to weed out perceived misfits. When the expectation is sanitized responses, the real question becomes: what’s the survey for?
The balance lies within emotional intelligence, that is, teaching employees how to raise hard truths in constructive ways while also teaching leaders how to listen without becoming defensive. Both behaviors are possible and learnable.