How to work with the Highest Paid Person's Opinion?

In complex organisations, particularly in B2B, input from highly vocal clients can sometimes feel like a "hard punch." This often leads teams to become reactive to a single, persuasive voice, ignoring the experiences of the wider, silent user base. So how do you avoid this trap?

Last week, Kate Pincott, Director of Product Design and Research at Multiverse and teacher at our online Mini-MBA, shared her practical advice on how to act in these situations:

"Yes, and"

First of all, when faced with a highly paid person's opinion (HiPPO) or a forceful stakeholder request, Kate recommends applying the "yes, and" technique borrowed from improvisation. Instead of shutting down the request with "but" or "no," acknowledge the request and then introduce the context and data about the potential risks.

Highlight Business Risk and Lack of Confidence

Introduce the context and data about the potential risks. When presenting data, even subjective data, frame it around the business's interests (saving time and money).

• If the feedback comes from only one vocal customer, you can state: "I'm going to do the thing that you've asked, and I want to highlight that we've only got one data point on this, so it's quite high risk to take action based solely on this feedback."
• Kate suggests using simple, visual measurement tools like traffic lights (green, amber, red) to convey risk and confidence levels. This frames the conversation as you looking out for the business, not just resisting the stakeholder.
  

Present Trade-offs

Every action involves a trade-off. Kate suggests explicitly showing the decision-maker their options:

• We can fix this issue (costing X time, potentially preventing the loss of one client), OR
• We can pursue this other feature that enables upsell opportunities (earning X amount of revenue).

By doing this, you frame the conversation as them deciding where to invest resources, allowing them to absorb the risk and choose which opportunity the business should pursue.

Ensuring Data Reliability

When dealing with a mixed bag of feedback, especially highly vocal inputs, assessing data reliability is crucial to ensure that design decisions are grounded in actual user needs rather than powerful individual opinions.

To do this, track Volume vs. Frequency. When feedback comes in from various channels (meetings, tickets, POCs), it is essential to track the volume and frequency correctly. No matter how many times a single customer or stakeholder raises an issue, you should still count it as one customer when presenting the information. This helps provide perspective and counter the influence of a charismatic, loud voice.

Want to learn more about how to demonstrate the value of design and creativity to C-suite? Join the waitlist for the next cohort of Mini-MBA for Designers & Creatives.