Does the Know-It-All Really Know It All?

I have a co-worker who started in our office about a month ago as a strategic planner. The number of people who don't want to work with him grows with each passing day. he's turning people off through both his know-it-all attitude and a lack of knowledge and understanding about what we do -- frankly, that's a deadly combination. Our boss knew he had a reputation like that before he arrived, but didn't do anything to address it. Unfortunately, he put him on a project that requires pretty detailed knowledge about how how programs work in order to develop a brand new program. Now we're all paying for it with frustration and lowered morale.

How might you, as a leader, deal with something like this? It's going to be a problem for you -- surveys among business leaders are finding the perception that young workers are arriving with over-inflated senses of their own importance. Though often attributed to millenials' upbringing, let's be honest: we were all like that, weren't we? I mean, this is really nothing new.

It poses a potential problem for you, perhaps more so among Creatives. You have people with unique skills who have been told how talented they are, and who may have a strong sense of "pride of authorship" when it comes to their work. It's easy for them to come in and assume they'll quickly be in a position of authority because many of them have been told for years that that's their destiny.

They can just seem annoying at first, but it turns into a serious problem when these folks try to change the way you operate. Change is good, when it leads to improvements, but if someone doesn't understand why you do things the way you do, then how can they know their proposal will be an improvement?

It's better, and easier, to prevent this problem than it is to fix it later. When you get a new employee, an education program is a good idea. They should understand your corporate history, so they know how things got to where they are now. They need to know about responsibilities in the firm...who does what, and why? They need to be clear on where the firm is heading, from the broad vision down to their particular tasks. Only when they understand why you do things the way you do should they be offering ideas for change.

But what if you didn't prevent this, and they start causing problems? Let's look at that Wednesday.