Advice please, oh tactful ones....

heretolearn_2

I have a new employee started this week. Very experienced, done a lot of high level stuff including contracting, has taken on a somewhat different role with us as a bit of a change of direction (although previous experience is relevant and useful). A lot of this job is quite new to her and I am running her training programme.

Now, she's being a bit, um, opinionated when I'm training her, disagreeing with things. Actual facts and figures 'X is X' type of things in areas she has no real experience of. Not in a nasty way and it's only happened a few times, but I think she's having a bit of a job adjusting to being a trainee again, at least in part. I'm trying to be charitable and think that she's used to going in and being in charge, or in charge of a project, and especially in contracting you don't want to admit to any gaps in your knowledge.

But it's getting a bit silly now and just wasting time as I have to keep reiterating a point for a few minutes until she finally backs down and accepts what I'm teaching her (or until I just give up if it's just a really minor point, which it mostly has been).

I want to let her know it's ok to not know everything, but that she needs to be more open-minded, open to learning, and have fewer opinions until she knows more about what she's talking about. She piped up yesterday in a big meeting with a comment that just didn't make any sense as she didn't understand what was being discussed, for example, and big boss just looked at her like '!!!!!!?!'

She is a very strong personality - which is good for this job - and I don't want to create any friction or hard feelings as we have to work together. How can I do this tactfully as I'm more of a 'lay it straight on the table' person, which I don't think is going to be a productive approach here..

smileylondongal

heretolearn wrote: »

I want to let her know it's ok to not know everything, but that she needs to be more open-minded, open to learning, and have fewer opinions until she knows more about what she's talking about. She piped up yesterday in a big meeting with a comment that just didn't make any sense as she didn't understand what was being discussed, for example, and big boss just looked at her like '!!!!!!?!'

She is a very strong personality - which is good for this job - and I don't want to create any friction or hard feelings as we have to work together. How can I do this tactfully as I'm more of a 'lay it straight on the table' person, which I don't think is going to be a productive approach here..

Are you her manager? If so, then I think next time it happens you need to feed it back right there and then. The best feedback is on the spot so the person can see the actual relevance. You could mention the other stuff, she may ask for examples, but it may make her think you've been clocking all the bad stuff which will go against what you're trying to say.

I had a couple of employees who were like bulls in a china shop which is not my approach, but sometimes you have to steel yourself and address it in situ.

I think perhaps you can start by asking her how she thinks it's going? perhaps ask her what she thinks about X task (pick one you think she's not doing too great in). Tell her you think it's a good time to give her some feed back and that you're giving this to her as you think she has real potential and that hopefully she can take this with the way it is intended.And go from there...

I think if you go in firm (not 'ranty') but with a 'this is for your development' angle then hopefully she will take it a lot better.

HTH

Sambucus_Nigra

Please accept my point and lets move on. If you still feel that there is an issue, please email me/ask me when you have reflected on it and I'll do my best to point you in the direction of the process/procedure/law [whatever] so that you can do your own research. But for now, you are going to have to remember that you are learning so please absorb and ask questions that are relevant and not picky. Cheers.

And tone it down a little in front of the big boss. It doesn't make sense to annoy him like you did the other day whilst you are still in training.

Or

Can we think bigger picture here please; make a note of the points that you need expanding on and I'll point you in the right direction [etc etc] for you to read up on it later.

SueC_2

Schedule an 'End of Week 1 Review' with her. Let her know in advance that this is what will be happening on Friday afternoon and explain that it will be an opportunity for you both to review how the first week has gone and plan out what will happen during the rest of her induction period. Treat it as a mini Performance Review - praise the good stuff and highlight the areas that perhaps need a little development, document the key points (you never know when you may need them). Be frank with her, but keep it positive - this is her first week after all, and some of what you're seeing may just be nerves, or a keeness to 'prove' herself. Give her plenty of opportunity to contribute to the conversation, but remember it's you who is leading it.

This assumes you are her manager. If you're not her manager, resign yourself to the fact that you have a new colleague that you are sometimes going to struggle to get along with!

Sambucus_Nigra

I was guessing that the OP wasn't her manager - otherwise he would be in a better position to be 'less tactful'.

heretolearn_2

I am her manager, but I used to also supervise someone else very similar and took my usual more forthright approach and it ended up with them hating my guts, so I'm looking for a different tack here. I'm not sure if it's nerves/trying to impress or just being arrogant (probably a bit of both), but I need to work closely with her and I don't want someone else glaring at my over their monitor all day :rotfl:

I like Sambucca's ideas - I was thinking of a low key 'tackle' of each incident as in 'OK, why is it that you are you disagreeing with me over this?' but Sambucca's is phrased better than that.

The situation is rather like if we produced radio and TV programmes (which of course while similar must have some differences in approach/techniques etc), and someone joined us with experience of radio but not really of TV. Then during training on TV tried to insist on the radio way of doing things.

Sambucus_Nigra

Ok - give her questions back as well, such as 'why do you think that the techniques that work in radio aren't suitable or relevant for tv? If you feel that they can be mapped across, perhaps you could present that at the next team meeting - will 15 minutes be enough for you?'.

Mistral001

Perhaps making sure that you are rarely in a one-to-one situation with her would help as she probably will not want to be shown up in front of others as a bit of a know-it-all. If she does come up with a good idea also praise her in front of the others. The better your employees perform the better it will reflect on you as their manager.

bluenoseam

I'd lay it on straight, you're not there to be her friend, you're there to be her colleague and if she's taking time disagreeing with your methods now she will only get worse unless it's nipped in the bud early, if it takes 5 minutes to explain something, 10 minutes for her to explain how she thinks it's done & a minute to say "well, i'm sorry but that's just how it works here" you've wasted 11 minutes or just under 20% of an hour's wages. Do that 5 times a day and she's effectively wasted an hour arguing with someone who is her superior - by all means you don't want a trained chimp, but in her first week in the job she shouldn't be questioning authority.

Sambucus_Nigra

And do remember that if it's not working out now - do something about it before it's too late.

tizerbelle

I concur with most of the previous posters - you need to be firm / direct / call a spade a spade and nip it in the bud now.

Yes her prior experience / skills may be beneficial to the role but her role right now is to learn how the company operates. Once she has completed her training and actually had some time conducting her duties under the procedures of this company so she understands the (cliche warning!) bigger picture then and only then should she come to you and say, okay we do this thing this way in this company, I wondered if we could in the future try it this way instead because it will (list of positive business reasons - not thats the way I like to do it)

Do NOT give up on the minor points and let her have her way - she is there at present to do things the company way. It is not her job to change procedures / processes regardless of how minor - that way chaos lies.