The difference between successful and failing teams has often been a good product manager. And that often means someone skilled at navigating the politics to ensure the team has runway to accomplish what it needs to. I’m not good at that work, but I’m grateful for those who do it.

Even when I’ve shipped an obviously good change, it can be bulldozed by political forces.

I don’t know how you get work done in a reasonably sized group of people without good political navigators.