HIPPO is an acronym for the Highest-Paid Person’s Opinion . . . and they’re bad for business.

Hippo’s tell you their opinion and, because it’s easy to agree or too scary to challenge it, people nod along. Highly-skilled and experienced team members’ ideas are instantly devalued purely because they’re paid less than the Hippo.

It throttles innovation and it needs to stop.

But what to do instead?

Take the Google approach and test everything. Every idea deserves to be tried or challenged, and when you can back it up with data from testing you’ve got a really good chance of being heard over the roar of the hippo.