by Mike O’Mary

Note: This is Part Three in a series of sporadic commentaries on how to get ahead at the office. These tips may not directly apply to your career as a freelancer, but if you have corporate clients, it’s important to understand life on the inside.

In previous posts, I talked about climbing the corporate ladder by attending lots of meetings and by expressing lots of opinions at those meetings. Don’t forget, it doesn’t matter if you express a series of opinions or just the same opinion over and over again. The important thing is to be noticed.

Today, I’d like to talk about a special kind of meeting: the employees’ meeting with management.

The first thing you need to know is that management doesn’t want this meeting any more than you do. They’re only doing it because somebody in HR told them you want more meetings. (If you don’t remember being asked, it was probably one of the questions in that survey you didn’t answer.)

The second thing to remember is that as long as you have to go to an employee meeting, you may as well turn it to your advantage. How do you do that? By asking a question. Sure, your friends will accuse you of sucking up, but you’ll have the last laugh when you get that 2-1/2 percent raise while your friends’ wages are ravaged by inflation.

But you can’t just ask any question. You have to ask an innocuous question–the equivalent of a fastball down the middle. Here are some time-tested questions from past employee meetings:
“What is our biggest challenge?”
And, “What is our biggest opportunity?”
And, my personal favorite, “Should we focus on increasing revenue, cutting costs, or both?”

If you ask a follow-up question, be careful. This is not the time to get testy or trivial. Follow ups like, “Are you calling me a liar?” or “Can I have another donut?” will not further your career. Instead, just ask, “What can employees do to help?” and then take your seat. The most difficult part will be resisting the urge to scream. But you can do it. You’re a professional, and you’re on your way to the top.

Mike O’Mary is founding dreamer of Dream of Things, a book publisher currently accepting creative nonfiction stories for anthologies on 15 topics, including an anthology titled “Cubicle Stories: Life in the Modern Workplace.”