Avinash Kaushik from Marketing Profs Daily Fix has pointed out a rule that younger professionals would do well to remember. Although the article talks about it in the context of websites, it’s pretty much universal for all types of projects and ideas.
“HiPPO’s rule the world when it comes to creating customer experiences. And that’s a bad thing. No matter what you think the optimal customer experience should be on the website it is quite likely that you walk into a meeting room, or office, and regardless of your competence the HiPPO decides what goes on the site. “
HiPPO stands for: the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion.
Most young professionals live under the mistaken belief that their opinion matters and their good ideas will be taken on merit. Sadly this, generally, isn’t the case. Time and bitter experience will teach you, if the idea doesn’t gel with the thoughts of the HiPPO then it probably won’t happen. There doesn’t need to be a good logical, business or operational reason. It’s just human nature. They’re having a bad day, don’t want to be undermined by a junior, they’re pursuing their own agenda, etc.
The most successful solution to this that I’ve done and had done to me is the ‘uniced cake’. Take the idea to the HiPPO, present 99% of it and explain you have difficulties in making it a winning solution. Unless they are genuinely opposed to the idea in any form then the general reaction is that they add the icing and push the idea through whilst taking some or all of the credit. You’ve validated their position as the expert, the idea has been approved and hopefully you’ve scored a few points in the HiPPO’s good book.
I know it disheartening to discover that the authority figures in your organisation are sometimes no better than petulant children but the sooner you grasp that simple fact the sooner you can start to make a difference.
Thanks to El for pointing me to this article.
