Highest Paid Person Opinion with the most power in the room whose opinion can’t be disputed. Other opinions and data can be ignored. In some cultures, people can be afraid to speak against the HiPPO.

Results:

• Ignored strategy and roadmap.
• Development cost increase.
• Growth rate decrease.
• Team productivity decrease.

How to handle:

1. Challenge decisions not aligning with goals.
2. Explain each decision and support with data.
3. Involve everybody in the discussions and collect opinions.
4. Focus on customer opinions and core values.
5. Enable free data flow within the company.

Really High-value New Opportunity—a sales-person with a customer deal for an unplanned feature insisting re-allocating resources to build what's required to win the deal.

Results:

• Ignored strategy and roadmap.
• Resources allocated to serve a single customer.

Two ways to handle:

1. Compare the opportunity cost and value, and argue against signing the deal if you have customer insight supporting the roadmap.
2. Adjust the roadmap if the opportunity includes features you already had planned for later in the year.

Seagull—a person who rushes into a problem without ascertaining the facts, gives orders with formulaic advice, and rushes away instead of working alongside the team.

Results:

• High staff turnover and low morale.
• Increased chances for heart diseases among employees.

How to handle:

1. Set clear expectations—explore what is required of the employee, how their performance will be evaluated, and agree to work towards the goals.
2. Communicate consistently—observe what employees say and do, and speak openly with them about their work.
3. Give powerful feedback—pay careful attention to each employee’s performance and praise as frequently as you give constructive feedback.

Unwillingness to share information/knowledge between employees or across different departments within a company.

Begins with competition among senior managers.

Сonsequences: 

• Poor workflow.
• Efficiency reduction.
• Corporate culture damage.
• Customer experience deterioration.

Escape:

• Practice collective knowledge-sharing.
• Company-wide software tracking the goals.
• Hold inter-departmental events.
• Consider altering the compensation structure.

Zero Evidence But Really Arrogant—a person considering them-self an expert really knowing the customer but doesn’t have any facts to back them up.

Results:

• Ignored data and customer opinions.
• Pseudo expert decisions about customer needs.

How to handle:

1. Support each decision with real data.
2. Involve everybody in the discussions and collect opinions.
3. Focus on customer opinions and core values.