Many employees don’t have a lot of chances to speak with the CEO of their company. No matter how friendly they are, CEOs give off an intimidating presence because of the leadership role they represent. However, many companies are intentionally setting up meetings with the CEO to create a transparent culture. That means it’s more likely that you’ll have a chance to speak with your CEO sooner rather than later.
But what do you even ask your CEO during these meetings? You don’t want to come across as accusatory, but you also don’t want to seem unengaged. Finding the right things to say can cause a lot of nerves, but by taking the time to prepare beforehand, you can figure out what you mean to say before the meeting.
If you’re not sure what questions to ask during your next virtual meeting with a CEO, don’t worry. In this article, we’ll outline various questions you can ask and how they’re strategic in revealing certain insights into the CEO and the company at large.
Question to ask a CEO in the next virtual meeting you have with them
What do you most value about the company’s work culture?
One of the biggest points of differentiation that competitors have from one another is their cultures. You may not be familiar with your company’s mission statement, but you’ll likely have firsthand experience of what the culture at the business is like. Your CEO, on the other hand, is an expert on the company culture.
By asking what they value most from the company culture, you’re giving the CEO a good avenue to talk about what they like best about the company. CEOs like answering this question, as they have profound visions of what their company represents.
This kind of question can also give you valuable insight into what the CEO appreciates the most from their employees. For example, you might find that they place a heavy emphasis on communication or intra-team training.
If you know what your CEO values most in employees, you can start highlighting those traits in yourself moving forward. Doing so will give you the best chance of standing out when the time comes for the CEO to make their next promotion.
What makes a team or organization successful?
This is another solid question to ask if you want to get a better sense of how you can start standing out in the workplace. CEOs define success in their organization in various ways, and they’ll likely have an answer that highlights certain metrics in the organization. After asking your CEO what they believe defines success, you’ll be able to begin measuring yourself with the same metric.
For example, your CEO may put all of the emphasis on bringing revenue into the company, or they may take a more holistic view by looking at metrics like customer satisfaction and employee retention.
If you can figure out what your CEO believes makes a company successful, it’ll be much easier to position you and your team to meet those needs.
What are some of the biggest challenges the company is facing?
CEOs are rarely satisfied with everything that’s going on in the company. There’s always room for improvement, and there are certain things that your CEO wants to change to scale the business further. By asking them what the biggest challenges are that the company is facing, you can learn what you need to improve as an individual.
Your virtual call with the CEO is an opportunity for you to get on the same page as them so you can start working towards the same goals together. They may be concerned over turnover rate, or perhaps they wish employees’ had better Zoom etiquette. Your CEO may even want to change some of the company’s processes for engaging with new leads or keeping current customers loyal.
The point is that, by asking this question, you allow yourself to learn what your CEO isn’t happy with in addition to what they like about the company. This gives you more information that you can use to fine-tune your approach to career development within the company.
How do you gauge employee feedback?
Research shows that 60% of employees want feedback on a daily or weekly basis. However, it can seem like the companies that they work for often don’t feel the same way. Many organizational leaders do their best to resist employee feedback on important issues until they have no choice but to act on it.
The fact is, though, that your CEO likely wants to hear from you. Employee feedback is very valuable to reducing turnover and improving operations. That’s why you may want to check in with your CEO and see how they gauge employee feedback.
This question can give you insight into how the CEO receives feedback. There may certain ways that feedback can be stronger for the CEO to analyze. These kinds of questions will help both you and your colleagues give future feedback in ways that are likely to lead to the changes you want to see.
What do you expect from your employees?
Every CEO has different areas of focus. Some care a lot about attitude in the workplace while others just want to see results. Some have very strict ideas about client communication and writing, while others care more about how often you contact clients than what you say while doing so. Most of all, they expect their employees to be motivated by the work that they’re doing.
The point is that it’s sometimes difficult to know exactly what your CEO expects out of their employees. This conversation is your opportunity to clarify that. By knowing how to be a more valuable employee to your CEO, you can work toward that ideal every day to measure up to their expectations.
What tools or technology do you hope to incorporate?
Business tools, technology, and software help companies do everything more efficiently nowadays. However, your CEO may not be entirely satisfied with the technology that the firm is currently using. You can use your Zoom call to ask them about the types of new tech that they would like to bring to your company.
This question is valuable for a few different reasons.
First, it can give you some good insight into the kinds of problems that your CEO is thinking about. For example, if they mention a new CRM tool, then that could be a sign that they’re not happy with the status of customer relations within the organization. They may not be as forthcoming if you ask them what’s been a challenge in the company, but they’ll likely have tools in mind to address these problems.
Additionally, asking this question will allow you to bring up any technology that you think would address some of the concerns they’ve mentioned earlier. If virtual meetings with clients were a concern, you could bring up VODIUM as a virtual teleprompter tool your company can use to be more effective during Zoom calls.
What do you think about the company’s internal communication?
This is a rather open-ended question that allows you to get some great insight into how the CEO feels about intra-employee communication.
You might discover that they’re unhappy with how little employees from different departments speak with one another. They might also say that they wish the team had a better way to communicate than what it’s using now.
If you’ve been looking for an opportunity to establish yourself as a leader, this could be it. You may be able to use the CEO’s answer to this question to start pushing for internal communication changes within your team.
If the CEO catches wind of you doing that, they’re certainly going to be impressed.
Are they any updates to the company you’re excited about?
It’s also not a bad idea to use your Zoom call with the CEO to see what they’re looking forward to doing next. They may be excited to reveal an update to the business on the horizon. For example, they might be interested in deploying a new strategy for scaling the business. Maybe they’re excited about a new partnership that they can’t wait to introduce.
CEOs are always looking forward so that they can build the business into something greater than it is today. Asking this question shows that you’re looking forward, too, and that you’re interested in seeing the company succeed long-term.
This question is a great one to end your conversation with if you’ve been searching for a way to close the call on the right note.
Ask your questions precisely with VODIUM
You have few chances to make a good impression on your CEO, and asking the right questions is a good step in the right direction. However, it can be very challenging to use precise language during an active conversation, and you don’t want to disrupt the flow of conversation each time you need to do it. That’s where VODIUM comes in.
Our virtual teleprompter software makes it easy to stay in the flow of conversation while reading your questions and statements so that you can be more precise with them. You don’t want to be bumbling around, especially if you’re speaking with the CEO. With a virtual teleprompter, you can ask your prepared questions precisely how you want to.
You can set it up to move at your own pace and place it wherever you want on your screen. This gives you the ability to read from VODIUM’s teleprompter while still maintaining eye contact with the other call participants.
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