The hungry hippo leader

What’s with all the animals?  In the last episode we looked at the Catalytic Converters of ideas, we called them Cats for short.  And then we looked at their opposite number the Downward Dogs who suck energy out of the debate to make it all about themselves.

In this episode and article I’m introducing you to another animal character that is the Hungry Hippo.  In conventional organisations the Hippos abound and in fact organisational culture might have made it desirable to even be a Hippo.   The question you’re now asking yourself is whether you’re a Hippo too.   Likely is you’ve definitely been a Hippo at some point in your career.

What is a hippo?

So what is a Hippo and what makes the Hippo so hungry and what are the implications for the modern learning organisation.

We’re here using Hippo as short-cut code for Highest Paid Person’s Opinion.   Many traditional paid organisations work in this way.   As I write this article in 2023 there are various public enquiries underway across the UK and at the centre of a lot of these debates is a tension between decision maker and expert.   This is very real stuff.   So why did the Hippos gain their status.

You can trace this all the way back to founder owner companies.  In a founder owner company someone starts off with an idea, develops it to market and then eventually starts to add staff to support them as their idea takes off.   Sitting at the top of the tree of their organisation, they are the Hippo and because the own the company, their opinion really does count, they have the casting vote.   Wise founders step off this track at a certain point when they realise the people they are hiring are being hired for their superior expertise but many family businesses still struggle with founder syndrome.

But it’s not just family businesses where Hippos abound.  The industrialisation of organisations from the 1950s onwards created the role of the professional manager and the corporate hierarchy.   Career paths here were characterised by starting at the bottom, learning the craft and then climbing your way up through various VP positions to reach points of influence.

Generally therefore most of the people at the top were there because they had extensive experience and understanding of the fundamentals of the company or had been hired in from other similar companies in similar sectors.   Not only were they the highest paid opinion, they felt their opinion counted because of their experience.

Zip forward to today and we can see that system breaking down.  Whether it is politicians ignoring the advice of experts or senior leaders struggling to embrace the pace of change and connect through complex layers of an organisation, it’s well recognised that those joining the workforce this year in 2023 will be the best qualified that they’ve ever been. 

And as we look at sectors such as life sciences, sustainability and technology it is patently obvious that the highest paid person and traditional leader in the organisation is never going to be the most knowledgeable in the room so if we’re all sitting there waiting for their esteemed opinion on a complex attribute of carbon offset trading, we may be waiting for some time.

Time’s up for the hungry hippo

The Hippos have had their time.  The trouble is that upcoming young Hippos have been mentored and raised in the traditional system.  We’re at that famous inflection point with technological change where the topics we’re often trying to figure out as organisations have moved on but our management and leadership styles are still trying to catch up.   And feel sorry for the junior Hippos because someone just pulled the rug out from underneath them, having been raised on the seniority track for some time to be told that now their opinion doesn’t count.

But all is not lost for the Hippos.   They just need to morph and change their style into something else.   This is all about seizing the intellectual and creative capital in an organisation through transforming from Hippo to Cat.

What’s happening underneath the surface

If you’re going to be that kind of organisation that brings in lots of expertise then the traditional hierarchical approach of organisations is never going to cut it for you.  

I did my masters dissertation research speaking to senior leaders about reverse mentoring.  At the time there was lots of press about the advantages of reverse mentoring in helping senior leaders understand diversity within their organisation.   Learning through exposure to difference.

My research however showed that this exchange of knowledge and cultures was an initial gain but there were deeper rewards on offer.  Not least of which was the sense that when you rise towards the top of an organisation the more distant and cut off you feel from the organisation as a whole.  You may be the boss but it seems you still need to ask permission from people to be able to meet anyone who actually serves your customers.

Throughout my research it showed layers of management, some of whom were still clinging on to being Hippos would manage and massage messages, optimising and refining for palatability, filtering out the less desirable or unhelpful aspects of things.   The senior leaders I interviewed knew this was happening, said they didn’t want it, told their teams they didn’t want and yet still it happened.

  Even when trying to arrange back to the floor type visits they knew their middle managers were busy stage managing the visit, ensuring they got to speak to just the right “experts”, the model people who would show off that team or department in the best light possible.   Big smiles and inner disappointment all round.

Our relationship between expertise and power

If you’ve lived in the UK through the age of Brexit you’ll know we have a tricky relationship with the word expert – it because synonymous with someone who comes up with a contrarian opinion, who is not on the bus, on the team or whatever phrase is your favourite.  

Yet as a leader you need contrarian opinion, agreed positioned constructively but if the decks are stacked with one type of voice you get one kind of answer and guess what – it won’t be people in your organisation telling you that you’re wrong it’ll be your customers, your competitors or both.

The speed and pace of change coupled with the diversity and complexity of challenges out there means a transition from generalists to specialists, whether we call them experts or not.  And so the role of the leader also is challenged from being Hippo to Cat.   The Cat leader is all about inspiring people to contribute everything to achieve the stated purpose.  So understanding and explaining Purpose is critical.  If people don’t understand what the north star is they can’t begin to fathom out where it is and so you squander experts heading in multiple directions.

Back to my research with graduate entrants to an organisation.  Despite working for different organisations almost all of the graduates said they didn’t entirely and always understand why they’d been hired because people hardly ever seemed to seek out or harness their expertise.  Sure they were new to the organisation, but they were often treated as if they came to work with a blank resume and a blank mind.

This is really odd behaviour but it’s the Hippo culture at work – that junior people, despite being smarter or more expert in their field have to offer this knowledge through a Hippo for it to have an effect.   Come on, we must be better than this?

Cats centre around purpose, Hippos centre everything around themselves

Explaining Purpose isn’t easy because people will crave detail after detail which as a Cat leader you know much better than to indulge them with because a Purpose that is fully defined and articulated with every action set out by one person is the act of a Hippo.  

Cats need to get that balance right so that Purpose is sufficiently clear it can be explained by almost everyone in the organisation with their language alone and yet still be relatively consistent.  And then it’s about getting out of the way or rather getting things that get in the way, away.

According to Forbes there are three things if you strive to be a Cat leader and not a Hippo to focus on;

First – enable, don’t direct.  Direct yields compliance so people learn not to act until the leader says it’s OK to do so.  Persuading and influencing are also attributes of power.   So Cat leaders need to create the space and place for people to be able to co-create towards the purpose, that they own a little piece of the pie for themselves

Second – earn instead of demand.   So the leader has the power to wield the axe but forcing compliance in this way is the nuclear option you can’t row back from.   From the great resignation to quietly quitting, Cat leaders know they have to earn the trust and right for people to bring their best work to the table.   Until mind-reading becomes a leadership capability, create a fearful environment and creativity will remain elusive

Third – encourage don’t judge.  This one seems to go without saying that if you’re the leader surrounded by lots of bright people expert in their field then do you really have the right to judge.  But this point is more about the effect that judgement has on people, their motivation, drive and creative spark.  People who feel they are encouraged will be more adventurous in their thinking, will try more radical combinations of ideas.  Cat leaders need to learn ways to provide feedback and input that is enabling and not judging

There are of course moments of crisis in all organisations where ultimately someone might need to bring back their inner Hippo because in that moment there can be only one direction to be implemented at speed.   But even then a Cat leader will recognise they need to signal really clearly that this change in leadership style is time limited, temporary and for a specific reason.   And then when the crisis is averted, we can leave the Hippos outside.