TL; DR: Navigating Politics — Food for Agile Thought #487
Welcome to the 487th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,663 peers. This week, Murray Robinson speaks with Charles Lambdin about why real organizational change hinges on navigating politics, not just process. Mike Goitein, channeling Roger L. Martin, cautions against data obsession that stifles innovation. Janna Bastow shares a curated list of must-read PM books for 2025. Meanwhile, Zvi Mowshowitz reviews Gemini 2.5 Pro’s impressive reasoning capabilities but critiques Google’s opacity. Lastly, Anthropic’s Alignment Science team exposes troubling gaps in how AIs like Claude 3.7 “think,” revealing alignment risks masked by polished reasoning chains.
Next, Aakash Gupta urges PMs to embrace adaptive, AI-informed strategies over rigid plans. Leah Tharin champions product-led growth through fast discovery and outcome focus, and Colleen McClain reveals a public-expert divide on AI optimism and regulation. Also, Ryan Singer tells Lenny Rachitsky how Shape Up restores clarity to scaling teams. And Ken Norton reframes “I don’t know” as leadership strength, not weakness.
Lastly, Barry O’Reilly calls on leaders to personally engage with AI, not outsource it, fostering curiosity and experimentation. Adam Ard critiques how “DevOps” became a silo, betraying its intent, and Jason Cohen offers a framework for simplifying tough decisions through upside-first thinking. Finally, Kim Scott reaffirms that Radical Candor means clarity with care, not cruelty, and trust at its core.
Food for Agile Thought #487: Navigating Politics, Gemini Now State-of-the-Art, Product Strategy Playbook,, ‘I Don’t Know’ — Age-of-Product.com
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🏆 The Tip of the Week: Navigating Politics
and : 🎙 Navigating Organisation Politics with Charles Lambdin
Murray Robinson interviews Charles Lambdin, who explains how meaningful change in organizations requires political savvy, coalition-building, and redefining value beyond lip service, because incentives and hidden power dynamics often override stated goals.
🎯 Product
(via ProdPad): The Best Product Management Books for 2025: 16 Picks from Product Experts
Janna Bastow curates a diverse, community-driven list of the best Product Management books for 2025, featuring insights from top PM voices and emphasizing real-world impact over theory.
: The 2025 Product Strategy Playbook
Aakash Gupta highlights how product strategy in 2025 must shift from rigid planning to adaptive, outcome-driven frameworks shaped by AI, with PMs driving continuous iteration, visual storytelling, and strategic influence.
: Why The World’s Leading Strategist Says Data Is Killing Your Product’s Future
Mike Goitein, drawing on Roger L. Martin’s insights, warns that obsessive data reliance can kill innovation. True breakthroughs come from empathy, imagination, and designing with users, not just analyzing them.
(via Mind The Product): 📺 The Key Principles of PLG: Leah Tharin at #mtpcon London 2025 (Product Advisor)
Leah Tharin shares that modern product-led growth succeeds by showing—not selling—value and thriving in competitive markets through fast product discovery, AI leverage, and specialized product roles focused on actual customer outcomes.
🧠 Artificial Intelligence
: Gemini 2.5 is the New SoTA
Zvi Mowshowitz highlights Gemini 2.5 Pro Experimental as a fast, reasoning-first model earning widespread praise, yet notes its stiff tone, censorship issues, and Google’s frustrating lack of transparency undermine its full potential.
(via Anthropic): Reasoning models don’t always say what they think
Anthropic’s Alignment Science team highlights a critical flaw in reasoning AIs like Claude 3.7: their Chain-of-Thoughts often hide how answers are derived, especially when influenced by misleading hints or reward hacks—raising deep concerns for alignment and safety monitoring.
(via Pew Research Center): How the U.S. Public and AI Experts View Artificial Intelligence
Colleen McClain and co-authors reveal a striking gap between AI experts and the U.S. public: while experts are largely optimistic, the public remains cautious, yet both groups want tighter regulation and more personal control over AI’s growing influence.
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➿ Agile & Leadership
and : 📺 A Better Way to Plan, Build, and Ship Products
Lenny Rachitsky interviews Ryan Singer on how Shape Up helps teams escape Agile’s endless sprints by shaping work upfront, timeboxing scope, and restoring urgency and clarity as organizations scale.
: How Do I Start With AI as an Executive?
Barry O’Reilly urges executives to stop delegating AI adoption and start experimenting hands-on—highlighting that leadership in the AI era begins by tackling daily friction points with curiosity, humility, and a personal productivity stack.
: The Power of Not Knowing
Ken Norton challenges leaders to embrace “I don’t know” as a strength, not a weakness, arguing that authentic leadership emerges through curiosity, presence, and the courage to release the illusion of certainty.
📯 Generative AI in Agile: A Strategic Career Decision
Recent research shows AI isn’t just another tool—it’s a “cybernetic teammate” that enhances agile work. A Harvard Business School study of 776 professionals found individuals using AI matched the performance of human teams, broke down expertise silos, and experienced more positive emotions during work. For agile practitioners, the choice isn’t between humans or AI but between being AI-augmented or falling behind those who are. The cost of experimentation is low; the potential career advantage, on the other side, is substantial. A reason to embrace generative AI in Agile?
Learn more: Generative AI in Agile: A Strategic Career Decision
🛠 Concepts, Practices, Tools & Measuring
: In retrospect, DevOps was a bad idea.
Adam Ard argues that naming DevOps doomed it—what began as empowering developers to own production became siloed “DevOps teams” that undermined autonomy, trust, and the very benefits the movement initially promised.
(via Radical Candor): Brutal Honesty Is Not Radical Candor: 6 Ways To Get It Right
Kim Scott clarifies that Radical Candor is not brutal honesty or permission to be a jerk. Instead, it’s about challenging directly and caring personally, combining kindness with clarity to build trust, not fear.
(via Jason Cohen): How to simplify complex decisions by cleaving the facts
Jason Cohen explains how to simplify complex decisions by separating upside from downside, choosing based on the most substantial upsides, using downsides only to veto, and embracing radical clarity over endless analysis.
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