how would you handle this Boss/situation? (long)

In My Humble Opinion
1

or how should I handle it?

I work for a driving school. my boss who got the job because he was the oldest son of the people who started it has no talent, no training, no leadership, no interest in actually improving himself on any of these fronts AND honestly believes he knows what hes doing since “I have been doing this for over 12 years, I think I know what I am doing”

he has some control issues which makes him a less than stellar teacher, his ego is large and seems to be based completely on the success of the school which is starting to fail.

I and some friends have been working on starting our own business, between us we have the management, the leadership, the training, and most importantly the interest in getting better and no ego getting in the way.

we have done the research, we have the drive what we of course lack is the capitol to start up.

now I know full well that the best thing for all involved would be to approach the current boss with a proposal that would set things up for all to profit (both money wise and in the improvement department) I talked to a very smart very nice man who works with the SBA who also told me this was my best bet. it would give me access to a bunch of people with the passion to contribute and the ability to test run my ideas before we commit to them (test, learn from the test, retest with new parameters)

the problem, he honestly believes there is nothing wrong with what he is doing, in spite of hard evidence, in spite of employee moral, in spite of falling sales, and in spite of the fact that I can demonstrate areas where he is throwing away money his ego just cock blocks all reason. he is even worse than the old owner (I guy I worked for at a different school) who went out of business thinking “I have been in this industry for over 30 years, I think I know what I am doing” I cannot find a way to get past this.

I tend to be very blunt and he really doesnt do well with my direct approach. I could shove him up against a wall and scream in his face that if he wants his daughters to go to collage he should really think about pulling his head out of his ass but I dont think that one would go over well at all leaving me with three options.
1 forget him, keep working on the business. I have some people who want to invest and more who want to help, it will just be a more expensive and longer process.
2 see if I can get some time at the next company meeting, use that time to do demonstration on Confirmation Bias, then segue into how that affects all of us and give some examples of places we could/need to improve, including analogies relevant to both the employees and the management with the hope that this puts the onus on the company instead of his ego
3 hold a private meeting with just him, explain that his company is bleeding 250,000$ per year due to bad management, show him places where this is irrefutable, explain that if he wants to be in business 5 years from now he has to make the changes NOW in this instance it would just be the 2 of us, so at least there is no public face to worry about, the catch being I dont think that it would matter much but I could be wrong.

the SBA guy I talked to mentioned that I am not the only person out there thinking along these lines, he had the same conversation 3 years ago. my business plan will improve both the quality of the teaching and the profit margins for the school, the instructors will have more work year round with the pursuit of new and untapped existing markets. students will be happier and more likely to spread the word and parents will no longer issue complaints like “your curriculum is nothing but stupid vocabulary words and rote memorization” (its true) it will also drag this industry into the year 2010 and out of 1978 where it appears to be permanently stuck. long term goals include setting the industry standard instead of trying to meet it.

I realize this is a ramble but I am hoping some dopers can give me a fresh look from outside my personal box.

2

Why do you want to go into business with him? Other than as a source of funding, does he have any value?

3

Unless you can raise enough capital to buy the business outright, the only option I can see that would work is Option 1.

Like it or not, he is the boss. There is nothing you can do to change that, and your anger over the situation is silly and harmful.

Take your ideas, write a business plan, get an SBA loan, and get out the door. I would only add that, while he may seem like an idiot to you, he does have knowledge and experience you do not. It would be a good idea to not “yell in his face” since he has things that will be valuable to you in your new business.

4

The curriculum at your driving school consists in vocab and memorization?

I’m having a hard time seeing how that would even be possible.

What’d I miss?

5

Option 1. You don’t want to go into business with him, as your interest are clearly not aligned.

Find another source of capital.

6

Some people just can’t be wrong. I gather you’re dealing with one. I suspect he won’t be receptive to new ways of thinking until calamity befalls. I would say Option 1 is the only feasible one.

7

He’s going to take his business down the tubes because he can’t or won’t do the things he needs to do to succeed. You need to not try to go into business with him. You know what he’s like; he isn’t likely to change.

8

I didnt go into detail but silly and harmful are pretty much backwards from what I would describe my feelings as being. he puts instructors to work that he knows are actively bad because he would rather not lose business to another school (no he doesnt realize that using bad instructors is in fact costing him business) he uses programs that “save” the company money by taking it from instructors in the form of less work and give the students a less effective education in the process, he is essentially committing legal fraud with every single sale when he tells customers he will give them the best education possible while doing every thing he can think of to just cut costs (and the best part about that would be that most of his cost cutting measures are costing him money)

silly? I dont know how being offended by someone who behaves in this manner would be silly, and as for anger…anger is a gift. without this guy I probably would never have done the research, read the books, listened to lectures, watched the videos, I realize you really dont know this guy but trust me, one one hand hes a great guy, on the other its pathetic.

you didnt miss anything, and its not just my school. every school I have come across has essentially the same crap for teaching

as for going into business “with” him there would be some really strict controls in place, I cannot possibly do what I intend to do while working for him so he would have to be willing to invest in a start up location to get things rolling.

and his understanding of investment is truly lacking. one of his money saving methods is to use Clear (formerly clear wire) for internet service at the main office. I am making up the numbers here but it Clear is 50$ a month and cable is 100$ he thinks he is saving 600$ a year. the problem of course is Clear blows ass, its down for significant amounts of time and its slow as hell so
we lose conservatively 2 sales per month meaning over 6000$ per year
employees are paid to sit and stare while pages load, paid to trouble shoot the router/hub to see if it just needs a reboot or if the net is down Again.
dont get me started on the 300$ computers running Vista.
I dont know if this post changes anyones thoughts (probably not) but I appreciate you guys giving feedback, you are telling me mostly what I already knew to be true its just hard to be impartial from where I am sitting. on one hand he has a large pool of instructors and classrooms that would be a huge help

9

My 2 cents - do not involve this boss in any way, shape, or form. Find alternate capital sources. If you went to him, he’d want to call the shots.

10

I’m assuming your new business venture is aiming to directly compete with your current boss…?

If that is the case, allow me to be blunt: There is more than one ego running amuck here, if you truly believe that you will be able to talk the current owner into supporting your new venture, or better yet, turning the reins of his family business over to you, Critical1, because you have drafted a nifty business plan. Honestly, you sound like a fresh-out-of-college punk who thinks all that book learning has made him smarter than the guy who’s walked the walk for 20 years. Don’t make that mistake.

Reality check: The new owner, if approached, would probably fire you on the spot vs. allow you to continue working in his business. He’ll no longer view you as an employee but a potential threat. He won’t want you poisoning/soliciting current students/staff nor would he want you to have access to his client list.

If you seriously think that you could run a better business, then go for it and good luck to you. But the thought that you could somehow involve your current boss, a man you don’t even respect and whose business would be negatively impacted by the success of yours, is both naive and audacious.

11

Right. Also I suggest you update your resume and post it on the usual sites.

12

Is this in the United States? I didn’t think driving schools were really a growth industry, what with driver’s ed in nearly every high school and learning to drive from your 'rents on a learner’s permit.

Also, bleeding a quarter million dollars a year? Unless this driving school is a lot different from every other driving school I’ve ever seen, this seems hard to believe.

13

Why would he want to give you money to start a competing business?

This is his company, not yours. You do things his way, or you work somewhere else. In 20 years, if you’re lucky enough to still be in business, some [del]snot nosed kid[/del] enthusiastic youngster is going to try to tell you how to run your business. You’ll likely fire his ass. The circle of life will then be complete.

14

not sure what state you are in but it varies from state to state and with more and more stated implementing graduated drivers licenses high schools are dropping the courses. in Washington there are not that many left. its a pretty large industry.

as for the other posts defending him

I would not be trying to start a competing business with his, the goal would be to turn around his company while starting a new one with some dissimilar goals. the reason I would end up competing is that he wont go for it.

I am not some young whipper snapper with a big ego and a bad attitude, I have already owned a business and seen it fail, I have worked for people both very successful and out right failures. if you want to defend the guy thats your right but I promise you, if you owned a business and he was applying to manage the place you would laugh outright at his methods.

as for driving schools the Curriculums are outdated, the methods used in car are based on 50+ year old teaching ideas which were based on opinion instead of research, there are markets going completely untapped and other markets going unpursued. when business is good he does good, when business is bad his employees do bad, moral is poor, training is laughable and every aspect of his “management” is based on a not very smart guy who only has the job because of his parents. now if you honestly think some random person can just magically become wonder businessman with no training and no interest in learning I really have to question your experience in business and in life. his single biggest flaw is that he is never wrong, you cannot tell him hes wrong even with hard data that proves it. if you want a counter example do some reading on Soichiro Honda and his take on failure.

15

I wasn’t defending your boss as much as criticizing your chutzpah, but okay. Good luck with your new ventures. Turning around one business will be difficult enough, especially considering the guy running the place is an obstinate idiot, but doing so while simultaneously starting another dissimilar business from scratch will undoubtedly stretch your vast resources to the limit.

But I can see that you’re up to the challenge as you’ve already gotten a business plan which includes switching to better, faster computers, and watched videos, and done research. So, honestly, is there anything left but to wish you the best of luck? I don’t think so.

16

looks like I forgot about the amazing powers of the internets, I didnt realize you could actually see the entire situation simply by looking at a post on a message board. but thanks for the best of luck

dissimilar goals, not dissimilar business.

17

I, too, don’t understand why you want to approach him. The way you describe him - which is all we can go on, since you asked for advice in the first place, people can make judgments only on your description! - there is no good way for you to work with him, and you would not have an advantage.

Personally, I would avoid either a direct confrontation with him, or the company meeting, because you don’t have a chance. You work for this company for some time, but haven’t found a way to make him listen to you, and nobody else in the company has managed to, either. So another meeting won’t help that. The only thing it might accomplish is that you get fired, instead of choosing your optimal time to quit, and if the meeting turns confronational, which is likely - given both his ego and your description of yourself as "blunt - then he could damage your startup by blacklisting you.

Why do you owe him anything, in this capitalist system? Go ahead, find financiers, make your own school.

18

Have to say I didn’t understand your OP at all on first reading - particularly the relationship between the first two paragraphs quoted and the third. Is this how it is: Your boss is an arsehole who couldn’t run a whelk stall - you and your mates have the skills and experience to set up a business, but lack the capital (as you stated) - so you’re not going to set up your own firm, you’re going to lay down the law to your boss and tell him why he sucks?

That sounds ludicrous, to be fair. Isn’t the key to these ventures the people? ie you could give 3 hard-working and talented folk a prototype for pet turds and they’d make millions; give 3 losers the prototype for free electricity and they’ll fuck it up? You’ll not be able to do anything with this guy. Could you engineer the funding / circumstances such that you could buy him out? Or at least get him to fuck off out of the way some place.

19

I don’t understand either. Basically it sounds like the OP (who from what I can tell has a shitty attitude) and a bunch of his coworkers are going to go up to their boss, tell him they are starting their own business, and then ask him to fund it.

It actually sounds ridiculous on many levels.

20

Where are you located? In most states high schools are getting out of (or have gotten out of) the drivers ed business as fast as possible due to liability and cost issues. It’s all going private.