Open Ended Questions to Management

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While reading the Investment Checklist written by Michael Shearn,  I came across an interesting list of open ended questions that can be asked to the management of a business. He recommends asking open ended questions to the management than asking close ended ones as open ended ones tend to give more insight about how the manager takes decisions.  Also he recommends that hypothetical questions should be avoided as they do not guarantee how the manager will actually act when such situation come.  

Some of the ones that I really liked some that I added from my end to make it useful for my reference in future are below. 

a)  What do you believe the job of the CEO is?

b)  What do you want to be known for?

c) How do you measure your success?

d) Where do you see this business five or seven years down the road.  How big would it be physically and/or financially?

e) What would you do different if you were a private business instead of public ?

f) What character traits do you look for in the people that work with you?

g) While deploying capital to expand business or line of business what are the foremost things you look for?

h) What do you think are some of the things that could jeopardize the good run your business had?

i)  What are the major things that your customer looks for while buying your product and how do you measure their pulse?

j) What are the key metrics with which you measure the business to gauge if its successful?

k) How do you differentiate yourself from the competitor? Do you do anything different?

l) If answer to k) is Yes, why can't your competitors do what you are doing?

m)  How do you view your suppliers from you standpoint?