To struggle managing people that are much older and/or more experienced than me?

[leaveitnow1244]

Just that really, not all staff older and more experienced just some.

What techniques do you use to deal with those like this?

I'm finding it really hard!

Can you give some examples of the issues you have?

Why would it be different to managing any other staff? My manager is a lot younger than me and I can’t see why it would matter. She is probably half my age.

What do you mean by dealing with it?
I've seen it from both sides. When I was very young I managed a team with some much older people. One of them was a bully who made my life a misery. I managed to win her over eventually by demonstrating my ability and earning respect.
When I was much older I gave up my management position and moved to a lower post in another organisation. I had a line manager 30 years younger. She was lovely and respected my experience and expertise, we made good progress using my knowledge and her new ideas.

Treat them with respect and listen to their view points. If you're a fair manager and listen to the team it should naturally fall into place. Good luck.

What is it that you find hard?

Give us some examples?

But the first thing I would say is I was surprised when I moved up to managing senior staff / expert staff that they would debate and have opinions. I assumed it meant that they didn’t respect me - it didn’t, it just meant they were grown ups with opinions just as I was when I happily debated things with my managers.

It’s nothing like managing junior staff. Now I am totally used to that and am also quite able to say no, we’re doing it this way when it’s time to call it, no matter how illustrious the person may be (and some of the people I manage are, or think they are).

It's less about the age and actually with hindsight the experience but it's those that have experience and are opinionated

So for example giving someone feedback - they have a thing where they think they know best and as it's subjective feedback can be opinionated about it

Hope that makes sense

If they are experienced it is possible they do know better.

The key is to be honest - they have more experience but you have the management role. Just be open about it.

@carriedout fair point thank you

It's hard to advise in a situation like this, as obviously we don't fully understand what goes on, but do you acknowledge their experience? For example, 'yes Sue, I appreciate that you're experienced in this field, however I need you to do it this way, as this is company policy.' If Sue then argues her case, listen carefully to what she says, and then say, 'yes, I totally understand where you're coming from Sue, however, as I said ..... etc., etc.' Don't know whether that's any help in the situation you're talking about.

Sounds like you’ve been promoted beyond your experience

maybe they do know best?

I think you are going to be better of talking to them as humans beings, and take full advantage of their experience and knowledge, rather than trying to "pull rank" and make yourself look silly

I’ve been managed by people younger than me and it was fine. As a pp said, they valued my knowledge and experience and acknowledged that they could learn from me. The exception was one who tried to teach her grandmother how to suck eggs, that didn’t last long because I resigned and left her to it.

Often the team on the front line have the best insight and best ideas for development. It’s a good idea to listen, value everyone’s input, sound things out with the wider team and avoid being defensive.

Is it a bad thing to be opinionated though?

The older is irrelevant, You're their manager so you manage

Why have you got the job with less experience though?

People get promoted beyond their ability all the time

You need to show that you know your stuff , are willing to listen, encourage them to come to you with solutions and value their experience, take responsibility for your decisions, make them feel that you've got their back, seek out their area of interest or expertise and acknowledge this. Be clear about your decision making.

I love the people in my team with lots of experience, I value their skills and knowledge and in turn they appreciate being heard and respected. They are brilliant people to have around who often make my life much easier, they have different skills to me in some ways though which makes sense as their job isn't to manage and mine is!

Ask their advice.

Ask for everyone's input.

Don't accept negatively make that clear. How can we improve. Xyz. Ask them to list them in order of their priorities with a strategic plan of how to implement it

I only realised this myslwf once I had been at a place for almost 4 years (most places closer to 2), it often is just the same old stuff on repeat, I think that's why some older staff might come across that way. You hear a new idea and it's like "here we go again" or that's not going to work because of x,y,z, we already tried it. That's something to consider as well for you, sometimes if they have more experience that can be useful, so utilise it where you can

Managing is a different skill set to doing the job. Maybe the older staff are absolutely brilliant and experienced at sorting potatoes* but the manager needs to source the potatoes, define the potato standards and oversee the potato sorting schedule.

OP: People with more experience are great for you - you should be listening to them, encouraging to organise feedback and suggestions and setting up some responsibilities and objectives for them to deliver when they have suggestions. Keep a record of conversations. Delegate where possible.

*the OP might not be a potato sorting manager, just for illustration.

Also if it's a disagreement about something subjective and it's their work - why bother? Waste of time - let them decide how they will do it. If it's not subjective (we need to format like this because the client has requested it, we need to do this because of process / compliance) that's different.

There is a high possiblity that they do know better.

So the question is: why are you managing people whose job you have little to no experience in? What are you managing, exactly?

How are you approaching them? Are you like one of our recent grads who thinks that with a hot off the press MBA certificate he can tell people in our business how to do their jobs without ever having done a day of work in the industry? Do you know/understand what they do?

So many questions.

Where does it say the OP has little to no experience?

The only post I can see mentioning experience is where she clarifies it's less about the age of those she's managing but the experience level. In this case an employee with 40 years experience could be managed by someone with 20 years experience.

There are plenty of reasons to listen to employees with more experience, but there are also many instances of employees getting stuck in a routine because "it's always been done like this so this is how I'm doing it." That's not necessarily the quickest or most efficient way of doing things anymore. Perhaps it's a situation like that.