“What should I do when my unknowledgeable and inexperienced employee gives me his opinion? He’s in his early 20’s and thinks he knows it all. However, I don’t really want to hear his opinion when I know it’s based on theory alone (or, in his words, a “moment of brilliance”) without much thought to implementation and the required result.”
My HR Survival Tip
It is true that some people will go into a job with their brains full of big ideas and a willingness to share them… non-stop. In some cases, this may be a recent grad who has learned a lot of business theories but hasn’t realized that theory doesn’t really go so far as implementation in the workplace. Other times, you may have a dreamer on your hands that just likes to “think big.”
The one thing to remember is that, most of the time, these employees really do believe they are offering you a brilliant idea and the company could make a lot of money or you’d save a lot of time, if only you’d listen and do what they say. Ideally, you don’t want to shut down the employee with ideas but you do need to control them. Otherwise, you’ll both be very unhappy.
The relationship isn’t just a strain on you for having to hear the know-it-all talk, he’s equally unhappy that you’re not listening and implementing his ideas. If you prefer using a system that’s worked really well for you, it’s understandable that you don’t want to make changes for fear that something will slip between the cracks.
Ask your employee to make a deal with you. First, he must agree to work with you for 2-3 months following the exact process you’ve used before so he understands how it works. After all, how can he offer suggestions for changes when he doesn’t yet understand how things currently work? During that period he is to write down his suggestions and, at the end of that period you will meet with him.
The meeting must be scheduled, allotted a specific amount of time, and his presentation must be concise and must offer not just the big idea but a detailed plan of implementation and why he thinks it will save/make the company money, save time, etc. and including checks and balances to ensure everything is working as it should. In other words, he needs to take his idea clear through the process to prove he’s completely thought it through.
After hearing the presentation and asking your questions, if there’s a small chance that his idea could work, I would strongly encourage you to try it. You may be pleasantly surprised to find out there is a better way of doing things or he’ll learn to think things through more carefully before presenting that next big idea. If you don’t believe his idea would work, be kind and let him know specifically where the holes are in his presentation. Let him know you’ll be open to one more meeting on this topic at a later date.
Keep in mind that growing older doesn’t automatically instill wisdom and that younger generations are more apt to have out-of-the-box ideas that really can work, if only we’d step out of our own box.
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