What are some effective strategies for handling difficult conversations with older team members?

Dealing with older team members is all about giving them due respect, acknowledging their knowledge and experience, and appreciating and recognizing their efforts. With an old team member one has to build trust, credibility, and open communication.

Definitely trust and credibility established over time helps. In addition though, speaking using factual data and removing opinions from a conversation and keeping it focussed on forward facing outcomes without blaming helps all difficult conversations. Also especially with the older more experienced people, it is important to treat them like partners on the journey as opposed to subordinates and bring them along and get their buy in early on in driving initiatives and give them a certain autonomy and ownership

Ser una persona mayor en un equipo, no quiere decir que estés quemado por ese puesto. Puede ser un recién llegado que trae mucha experiencia. Como el que aprende a conducir antes de ir a la autoescuela, también puede traer vicios o manías. Por eso, lo mejor es escuchar mucho a la persona con experiencia y aplicar una fuerte pedagogía en el caso de nuevos procesos que no conozca. Y estar preparado para ahorrar tiempo y dinero gracias a su experiencia. Nunca se sabe.

Escuta ativa e sincera. É sempre uma perda lamentável cancelar pessoas que estão exatamente no momento oportuno para nos ensinar a não errar onde eles erraram e uma arrogância crer que eles não estão abertos as "novidades". Sempre haverá pontos de concordância, nesses, andemos juntos.

Yes, this is most important that you respect their experience and knowledge while asking questions to get their input. Another way instead of a question is to pose a “tell me about” statement. Tell me about what you did before to resolve this type situation.what worked and what didn’t work, or what worked the best. Let that person be in charge of a certain portion of the project.

The focus while interacting should be on the impact. the communication should be transformational with an intent to create change and be beneficial for both the person and the company. The statements used with team members should be reframed from accusive to accountable, where instead of accusing, the focus should be on the real purpose of the communication using authentic information and evidence to substantiate, while also keeping in mind the goal. This will help create a win-win situation.

Aqui vale relembrar a importância de não apenas ser racional, mas ter a capacidade de racionalizar a situação. Não se ver em primeira pessoa, mas conseguir imaginar o cenário como um todo, muito das vezes, se colocar em terceira pessoa e depois disso iniciar a conversa.

Es correcto, debemos siempre apoyar al equipo a seguir los procedimientos para lograr el objetivo común y la comunicación con el equipo es muy importante, no solo para transmitir las ideas sino, y más importante aún es escuchar al equipo.

In my experience, I have seen that usually, the young managers choose to ignore the older team members judging and questioning their abilities. To maintain the status quo they ignore them. It is important to listen to them, understand their needs, and work around them, their plans and goals according to their strengths. The older team members have a long history of experience that can be used to collectively grow and succeed.

It's pivotal to adopt an approach centered on listening to understand, rather than solely formulating responses. By emphasizing this "listen to understand" approach, you create an environment that fosters respect and encourages open communication.

Isso é muito interessante, a importância de se sentir ouvido é subestimada! Como foi citado, alguns movimentos não verbais já fazem com que a conversa se torne mais fluida. São dicas simples: faça contato visual, tenha uma expressão que demonstre apenas que você está prestando atenção, esteja presente!

Este punto es muy importante y muchos líderes, a pesar de conocer la importancia en teoría, en la práctica no la realizan. Debemos saber escuchar a todos los miembros del equipo ya que ellos cuentan con la información más detallada del trabajo a realizar.

“None of us is as smart as all of us.” Collaboration is generally the key to finding a good solution that will be accepted by all. If only a few mandate how things will work, it’s hard to get full cooperation. Companies should always ask for input from workers before they make key changes.

Útil ao agradável, um cliche que funciona! Unir ideias,previsões e experiências é unir forças! O resultado sempre será bom. Sendo assim, pensamos em ser racional, racionalizar, ouvir e agora colaborar unidos para juntos, serem de fato, uma equipe.

I have seen it before - the collaboration between a self-taught, wise, experienced, slower, more mature (maybe more sore) person and a newly graduated, book-smart, intelligent person who rushes forward in careless blind optimistic enthusiasm-hungry for everything this bright new world has to offer… When those two start sharing knowledge and respect it is a glorious thing! UNBEATABLE! Understand that your mature employees may have some outdated ideas about the world but it doesn’t make them bad people, and your younger ones may appear immature, ignorant or careless-so did we 3 decades ago. The key is for everyone to keep open minds and respect each other for their own unique strengths that they bring to the team.

Encouraging an open-minded approach in difficult conversations is key. It's essential to remind younger individuals that older counterparts were once young and hold valuable wisdom. Simultaneously, it's crucial to remind older individuals that younger colleagues bring innovative ways to tackle challenges. By amalgamating wisdom and novelty, we can achieve enhanced outcomes and solutions.

To younger coworkers. Grow up and realize that you don’t know everything…….and that “None of us is as smart as ALL of us.” The more people are involved in a decision, the more likely they are to follow it.