You are sitting in a meeting, around a conference room table with about 15 or 20 others. You are discussing an idea/concept and after much debate, come to an agreement. You all agree that the new logo, will be blue with a dark black outline, using Comic Sans MS as the font.
In comes the Director, and the meeting leader presents her with the new logo design. She looks at it and says, that she believe that it should be pink, with a dark blue outline, using a Copperplate Light font.
Suddenly, everyone around the room, begins to nod in agreement. The meeting leader, chimes in with "Yes, that is one of the options we were thinking of and it was what we were leaning towards, but we weren't quite certain about it. We will go with your recommendation. Thank you."
Has this ever happened to you? This is called the HIPPO Effect. It states that: "The highest paid person's opinion usually dominates how people make decisions inside more organizations. People equate status and money with intelligence and insight, when there is often little correlation"
To learn more, go to: Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries by Peter Sims (Free Press, NY 2011).