Don't Be a Hippo

In this case HIPPO stands for the Highest Paid Person's Opinion. While you may have risen to the position you are in based on hard work, skill, and/or your intellect you may not always be the most qualified to have your opinion be the “right one” every time no matter what the subject matter.

Consider an advertising campaign your company is developing that is geared at a twenty something demographic (you passed your twenties several exits ago) that your Marketing Team is pitching. For argument’s sake let’s consider at least one of the Marketers in the same age demographic as the target audience. They may show you several concepts or rough drafts that you personally don’t like. Does this mean that people in their twenties won’t like it? Are you qualified to go to iTunes and pick out five albums someone this age would actually like? I thought so. How is this any different?

If you hire experts to do a particular job you need to be aware of what you are doing when interjecting your opinion when it may not be the most valuable.