How to deal when the problem is the owner of the company?

[Tory79]

Dh is one of the senior management team of a medium size company.

The company has a ceo who is supposed to be in charge day to day, however, the owner is also very involved. He is a slightly eccentric millionaire, and very very temperamental.

Dh is supposed to report to the ceo, however, the owner is constantly going direct to dh and asking him to do things behind the ceo's back. Sometimes he even tells him specifically not to tell the ceo. The owner and the ceo seem to have a random relationship where they don't actually talk about a lot of things, and dh has become something of a piggy in the middle. He is forever getting in trouble with one for doing something the other has asked him to do.

The owner also makes what I would consider unreasonable demands on dhs time eg will call or text him well into the evening - the other night he had him on the phone until gone midnight.

He is also very unreasonable in some of his behaviour towards dh. Yesterday was a horrible example of this. He asked dh to go to London yester eve to meet him at his hotel to discuss some issues with a project that the ceo is managing. (We are in the Midlands, dh goes to London once or twice a week) what this involved was him shouting at dh for about 3 hours (to the extent that hotel staff came over to ask if everything was ok) over issues that are really down to the owner and ceo to sort out. Dh was then working on something until 2am to try and resolve this, and up again at 6 to do more.

The owner is constantly shouting at him and on his back for things that are nothing to do with dh. Bizarrely I think this actually comes from him really respecting dh and his work and wanting him involved in everything, but equally feeling like somehow everything is down to dh.

Anyway, it's shit. I know dh would like to leave but in this role he is very well paid and if he went elsewhere he'd probabky earn half what he does now.

I just don't know what to suggest, when the problem lies predominantly with the owner.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

[prepperpig]

I hate to say it but there is no magic solution to this. The owner is the owner and in charge. That isn't likely to change and so your DH should probably look for another role if he doesn't believe that sitting down and talking things through will resolve the issues.

[Tory79]

He has tried to talk about it a few times, they ngschangefor a short while then go back to normal

[Tory79]

Bump

[flowery]

If talking to the owner and the CEO has not had any effect then I can't see anything else making a difference to be honest. When it's the owner of the business options to change them are very limited.

[Scrumbled]

This sounds very similar to the company I work fo, the owner manager looses his temper easily and is a massive patronising micro manager. I saw one guy get promoted, he started out as a self assured gobby arse, then disintegrated in front of my eyes, 3 months later he begged to step down. I got to the stage where I knew it would never change and started to look for another job. I ended up enjoying the interviews because it was so nice to be spoken to in a professional manner and to be listened to! Only a few more days left in the hell hole

[Tory79]

Thanks. The stupid thing is they are clearly desperate not to lose him. He got head hunted last year, and ended up getting a 20k pay rise to stay (he couldn't have taken the offered role anyway as it was abroad)

[PeaceOfWildThings]

DH has had a number of jobs which were similar.

Your DH needs to set boundaries on his time, his personal life and how he allows them to speak to him. Imo, he should talk to an employnent lawyer about whether he has a case for being bullied at work. Shouting at him is bullying. Calling him that late at night and expecting him to travel to London late at night, also bullying. There might be other things. He needs to get them to email him more and put things in writing.

He also needs to sort out which of tgem he reports to, and get them.in a meeting together to thrash that out.

[Tory79]

The owner unbelievably does not have an email address. I think he does a lot of things that he wouldn't want on record, so it's all over the phone etc or via his assistant.

[FishWithABicycle]

Your DH is clearly a very capable, intelligent person with excellent skills or he would not be in this job.

This company is clearly doomed. Such a clash between the ceo and owner is going to drag it down.

He should start job hunting. Find a different company to benefit from his skills, and let these two idiots get on with it without him. He doesn't owe them anything.

[pluCaChange]

It sounds as though both DH and the CEO need to leave.

Is this company some sort of vanity project for the owner, or has he actually got any experience?

[Tory79]

He has fingers in quite a few pies plu, and experience in some elements of this particular company, less in others. He owns quite a few companies.

I always find it a bit of a conundrum - he's an a*hole with some terrible working practices but he's obvi doing something right!

[pluCaChange]

"doing something right" or had the money to get companies/ projects off the ground then not run them properly ...?

[Skiptonlass]

How is the company doing, financially? The top brass sounds very unstable and to me that's a red flag that they could be doing something that would damage the company.

Unfortunately, when the problem is someone at the top, there is very little you can do. I'd be getting your Dh to do some serious networking to get other possibilities lined up, then have a frank chat with the CEO and owner about boundaries. If that goes south, he's in a better position to look for new work.

Or of course, the owner needs distracting with a shiny new toy/project that will keep him off your Dh s back? :)