I'm a very experienced manager in a different industry, but I've recently started a new small business. Things are going OK but not great.
I have two team members with much more relevant experience than mine. They *should* be able to implement solutions that work, but their ideas are consistently wrong. The ideas are expensive, they propose drastic changes to the business, and they want to stop doing things that are bringing in revenue. When they have been allowed to implement their ideas, they often haven't worked. They argue for large expenses but against small ones, to save money. None of it makes sense.
The thing they seem to lack is that intangible "judgement"… that sense of whether an idea suits this situation. Their vast experience just doesn't seem to translate to workable ideas in this context.
They argue that I lack experience and don't understand the proposed solutions – but as I mentioned, those solutions haven't worked. Feedback is not proving effective because they believe I lack experience, and I'm pretty much at dismissing them. Any tips for dealing with employees who know a lot, but just can't make good recommendations?
How do you deal with employees who lack judgement?
byu/Trollslayer0104 inEntrepreneur
Posted by Trollslayer0104
5 Comments
They have no skin in the game. They still get paid when it fails.
Smaller leash, they follow up SOP. You pivot as needed based on data.
I would lay out my thought process of making decisions in a framework and then train them on it in roleplays. Might take a whole day but its worth it.
Feels like bad judgement and more like they’re not aligned to outcomes or context- smart people can still make wrong calls if they don’t feel the consequences.
I’d stop debating ideas and make them write the expected outcome, cost, risk, and rollback plan before anything changes. judgment shows up fast when people have to attach numbers and consequences. Leadline is unrelated here, but same idea applies, signal beats opinion.
For most people, there is a very big gap between the work they do every day and the business of it. These people may have experience in the everyday work, but it sounds like they lack business experience.
They need to be taught that work experience does not equal business experience.