What's the best way to deal with oversmart people I really have a hard time dealing with oversmart people who think they know everything while in reality they just don't have enough experience. I have come across such people in both work and personal life. While in personal life it's easier to avoid them, it becomes very difficult to avoid someone at work. Any suggestions on ways to deal with such people and not loose your cool would be appreciated! |
Assuming the behaviour is bad, it probably steams from insecurity. Some people see life as a competition, or getting a best score as an objective, or is the main way they have learned to get appreciation (from parents, teachers, bosses). Think Lisa, from the Simpsons.
I would also avoid framing everything in terms of "have you done this before", like other commenters are recommending. It is more important if someone can back their words on the present, that an appeal to authority. (have you used Angular 3.1.2.3 before?, have you studied economics?, etc.). Arguments should be evaluated on their own, even if for practical reasons in real life we use heuristics based on experience.
Finally, I do not think the right term for this is being (over)smart. Depending on the behaviour it could be lacking social skills, being arrogant, condescending, etc.
Your ‘no experience’ comment makes it seem like the former. And if they are not actually smart, you can probably demonstrate their ineptitude through simple dialog and insightful problem-solving, assuming you are smarter than them.
Also I’m not sure I see a huge distinction between intelligence and experience in this industry. People who are ‘smart’ but don’t have experience tend to do really stupid things like trying to reinvent things that already exist in a better form, or design and code whole products built around a bad design, thus burying their teams in technical debt. And that’s not very smart - that’s stupid on a lot of different levels.
You be surprised, sometimes those smart talkers produce some interesting result when triggered correctly. Some get overwhelmed and might break, so be careful with this.
I know for some people, I fall into the "oversmart" category. (Obviously, with others this is not the case) There are some of my teammates that choose some of the manipulations suggested herein who get no benefit of my ability to see solutions I've never tried before, because they have shut the door.
Other teammates engage me often to their benefit.
The difference IMO, the teammates that come to me, they have no ego about working with someone else to make a solution.
The boss just observes and keeps kicking me raises.
I suggest always being open-minded. Even when the crazy mf is talking again.
Being smart means to improve dysfunctional processes.
Being oversmart amounts to complaining.
Similar to politics, the line becomes harder to draw if current processes/ideas/workflows really are dysfunctional.
As long as money is made; presumably there is work to do
Can you give a brief example? That would help generalize. This question is a bit abstract.
How do you know they think that? Are you a mind reader?
the polite part is the important part and is the part that i fail at the most.