Colleague trying to take credit from my hard work [duplicate]

Question

The owner of my company has another business, both companies are very small and both share the same office space.

My problem is this, there's a senior employee working for the other company who seems to be trying to take the credits of the work I'm doing, I'm the company manager. He does this despite the fact that he's never contributed for this particular project.

He sits in the same area with my company, he's older than me and he's friends with the company owner. I've been in this project since the start and I know the ins and outs of the project and company so I know he hasn't been involved in anything.

Here's the problem, he listens to what I say to my team and gives his opinion to the company owner without really knowing the whole story or talking to me.

He askes the owner to add him to all of my company's software programs, all the private company documents, all the google analytics, social media back-offices, he requests to be on it all offering to help me with strategy and planning(I never asked for help). He never does share his ideas or opinions with me, he's just there so he can find flaws and communicate them to my company's owner. What should I do? Should I tell the company owner what's really happening at the risk of having them both turn on me?

I can see he manipulates my manager many times and that some of the feedback I have from the projects I do or are planning to do are deeply discussed between both.

This relationship both have is starting to affect my work and limit what I can do since he vets some of the things I'm planning to do. The company has been growing since I took the helm so I don't know what to do to explain to my boss how he shouldn't listen to the other guy. HELP!

Answer 1

I'm going to assume by being "the company manager" you hold the highest managerial position of the company, and the "manager" you refer to is the owner of the company.

If by "tell the company owner what's really happening" you mean that you'll explain to the owner that credit for your work is being stolen, you can expect to get called childish and ignored. You shouldn't assume for one second that the owner is not aware about what is going on.

You need to frame your concerns in terms of negative impact to the business. How does the behaviour of your owner and their friend cause risk to the operations? The owner is, of course, allowed to run their business however they see fit, so you need to make sure the owner knows they are making a decision between success of the business and nepotism.

EDIT: I've just taken a look at some of your other questions. I'm assuming this is the same company. I don't say this often, but you have to really assess if you wish to continue working here.

Answer 2

You obviously have to do this in a way that doesn’t make you look bad.

That person wants to know everything, doesn’t actually anything to help, and you suspect they try to take credit for your work. Forget the third part. Focus on the first and second part, which would look strange to anyone.

Go to the company owner and just ask what the role of this person is supposed to be. You ask because it takes time and effort to keep them informed and you are not aware of any feedback ever, so you want to know if there is a purpose to this or if you should just ignore that person in the future.