The Highest Paid Person’s Opinion.

One of the (many) barriers to speaking up is the knowledge or perception that your voice doesn’t carry as much weight as someone else’s. This can be particularly common when in the presence of those who are higher up in the formal or organisational hierarchy. Sometimes it can feel as if there’s not much point even engaging because it will only be the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion, or HiPPO, that counts.

Also known as authority bias, whatever this person says is given extra credence and importance because of their status. And this can happen even if those “lower down” have greater expertise and experience on the matter. This dynamic is a corollary of the effect that power can have on psychological safety: that people are less likely to speak up against a power gradient.

Photo by Stefan Steinbauer on Unsplash

The HiPPO effect can be at play even in the most throwaway comments. I was once chatting to a CEO who experienced how cautious they needed to be about this first hand: shortly after becoming CEO, they visited a regional office and noticed the decor was a little subdued. They made an off the cuff comment about how nice it would be if the walls were colourful, maybe pink. They were really just making small talk, but the next time they visited, they found all the walls had been painted pink. Not necessarily a problem in this instance – pink walls are arguably pretty harmless – but worth bearing in mind that too much weight can be ascribed to the HiPPO. 

I’ve found myself both a victim of the HiPPO and in the HiPPO position myself before, and neither are healthy for a team or organisation. 

Ways to counter the HiPPO:

1. Acknowledge the HiPPO in the room – use the term “HiPPO” to name the problem, so that you can be explicit about your intention not to fall into that trap.
2. Probe when you suspect it might be at play – are we at risk of just going with the HiPPO here? Is there a bit of a HiPPO phenomenon at play? If you’re the HiPPO, you’re even better placed to call this out. 
3. In a discussion, invite and record all people’s contributions before getting into any kind of back and forth as to which to go with.
4. Take time to map out not only what people have said but also what unique perspective they have on the matter – e.g. do they work most closely with this client? Have they had the most hands-on experience of delivering a similar objective? Have they worked in another organisation that did a similar thing?
5. When you find yourself going with the HiPPO, stop and ask, why are we doing this? What’s our rationale? Challenge any assumptions that it’s the right thing to do simply because the authority figure said so, and make sure the decision is a sound one on the basis of all the available information.

It’s important to take explicit measures to counteract the HiPPO, but the first thing to do is acknowledge that it exists.

Further reading

Psychological Safety: Structure and Power
How to Run Psychologically Safe Meetings
PACE: Graded Assertiveness
Power and Psychological Safety
Seven Examples of Damaging Psychological Safety in The Workplace

Psychological Safety in Practice

To err is human. To blame someone else is politics.

We’re out in NYC right now, having a few meetings and doing some research on potential workshop locations. I saw this excellent sticker of a Hubert Humphrey quote on a post box in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. “To err is human. To blame someone else is politics.“

And I’m super happy to share this, thanks to my doppelgänger Pete Rushmer for inviting me onto his “A half dozen things” podcast where we talked all things psychological safety, and in particular how organisational values and principles might always align with the espoused and lived values of the people within it. 

This week’s poem:

Hidden Things, by C. P. Cavafy (translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)

From all I did and all I said
let no one try to find out who I was.
An obstacle was there distorting
the actions and the manner of my life.
An obstacle was often there
to stop me when I’d begin to speak.
From my most unnoticed actions,
my most veiled writing—
from these alone will I be understood.
But maybe it isn’t worth so much concern,
so much effort to discover who I really am.
Later, in a more perfect society,
someone else made just like me
is certain to appear and act freely. Inspired by this mural that we spotted in at National Sawdust, Brooklyn, NY.