HIPPO Syndrome

The meeting is called to decide. Evidence is presented, options weighed — and then the highest-paid person in the room states a preference, and the analysis evaporates. The HIPPO — the highest-paid person's opinion — has entered, and nothing else in the room has mass.

The mechanism is ancient hierarchy dressed in business clothes. Deference to rank once protected the tribe; now it protects salaries. And it corrupts in both directions: juniors silence themselves, and seniors, hearing no resistance, begin to trust their own impressions as if they were data.

The cost is quiet and enormous: organizations paying a hundred salaries and using one mind.

The fix must come from the top, because only the top can afford it: the leader speaks last. Opinions are collected before the powerful one is revealed. It feels inefficient. It is merely the difference between a meeting that ratifies and a meeting that thinks.