I've been in this situation a few times and it's very hard to push back on a decision that's been 'made' even if it's not appropriate for the team you're on.
Nothing against the CEO. He's an extremely friendly and approachable person. Most people just fear questioning authority and power, and the CEO in a modern day corporation is revered similar to a king in a monarchy. It's always been like that at every company I've worked for.
My company sends out periodic anonymous surveys as an attempt to garner feedback from the employees.
The only problem I see is if employees, for whatever reason, don't believe such a system is truly anonymous and thus refuse to give honest feedback. I don't see that being a common trend though.
If so, it probably signals more serious problems between employees and the higher-ups ...
I personally will never trust any such survey at work.
Not that I give a crap anyway, I still tell the truth knowing full well it might be used against me. If they can't handle honesty, they need to surpass 16-year old mental age. And I can find another job before my notice period expires.
a) What was decided (obvious, but you'd be surprised how often people disagree)
b) Why it was decided - Now you can construct a basic "Given X, Y, and Z, it seems like a good idea to A and B"
c) The criteria for success or failure - how would someone who did not make the decision know whether it was successful or not?
Without all three, you can't make empirical decisions and then follow up on them. Decisions without any of those three are unmoored from reality.
It's like in chess, when people talk about making "principled" moves. It means playing the move that best fits the plan you have been pursuing, rather than a tactically more tempting move that is less consistent with your overall strategy.
