How employee feedback guided our company values refresh

At SurveyMonkey, our values define our culture, inspire our growth, and shape our business decisions. In recent years, they’ve helped guide our way as we’ve expanded our global offices and launched game-changing new products and features. But as we evolved as a company, we had to ask: Do our current values still reflect who we are and where we’re going next?

Some of them absolutely did. But others felt like they needed a closer look.

It all started when, at a leadership meeting, our executive team shared stories about the people they most admire at SurveyMonkey and the advice they’d give a new hire. This sparked such a great discussion that our CEO invited employees to share their own stories and advice in our all-hands Slack channel.

As we looked at those stories, a pattern emerged. The values we hold dear were still present, but the way we talk about them, apply them, and use them to make decisions needed to evolve.

So we launched a new initiative, inspired by a Harvard Business Review article from Erin Meyer on building actionable company cultures. Her insight: values stick when they help employees resolve dilemmas. When faced with two valid but opposing choices, the right values tell you which direction to go.

In true SurveyMonkey fashion, we kicked things off with a survey. The “Dilemmas Survey” presented eight common workplace tensions—like when to take charge versus seek consensus, or whether to prioritize innovation over risk avoidance—and asked leaders across the company which approach they believed best served our SurveyMonkey mission.

The insights helped surface where our values could be more instructive. In many cases, we saw alignment across the board. In others, there was healthy diversity of opinion—a reflection of the nuanced decisions we face as a global business. Most importantly, the results confirmed that a values refresh would help bring greater clarity, cohesion, and purpose to how we work together and make decisions.

Following the survey, we held leadership workshops, language-testing with managers, and small-group working sessions with employees to shape the final direction.

“This wasn’t a top-down rewrite,” said Becky Cantieri, our Chief People Officer. “It was a collective effort shaped by stories, feedback, and honest reflection on where we want to grow.”

Listen well, question assumptions, and seek to understand so everyone can learn and grow.

Be bold and thoughtful to help customers solve real problems.

Take charge and own your results—mistakes and all.

Collaborate across teams with kindness and high standards to drive business success.

Make it safe for everyone to speak up—especially for those not always heard. Belonging builds trust, and trust builds results.

Our new values aren’t meant to simply sit in a slide deck. We’re embedding them across SurveyMonkey—in onboarding, recognition programs, team rituals, and leadership development. And most importantly, in the big and small choices we all make every day.

“Every difficult choice is a chance to live our values,” said CEO Eric Johnson. “These aren’t just aspirational traits. They’re the foundation for better alignment, faster execution, and stronger outcomes.”

The real goal is to feel our values in how we give feedback, take initiative, listen with care, and support one another to succeed.

This refresh didn’t happen because our culture needed a reset—but because we’re committed to growth. And great cultures, like great companies, keep evolving.

Our values refresh is part of a bigger story. We’ve updated our mission and vision to reflect the broader impact we want to make in the world:

Our mission: To help teams gather insights and information that inspire better decisions, create experiences people love, and drive business growth.

Our vision: To deliver the answers that drive the world’s progress.

Together, our mission, vision, and values form the foundation for everything ahead.

To the many employees who helped shape this work, thank you. And to any customers and community members reading this: we hope you see these values reflected in every interaction with our brand.

Here’s to a culture built not just on words, but on action. Here’s to what’s next.