*Organizations exist to solve problems, leaders look for problems to solve*
The most important important thing an organization needs to figure out is what problems to work on. Finding good problems and maintaining focus on them is what we trust our leaders to do for us. This separates the most senior leadership from the rest of the organization a bit because they ‘don’t do any work’. As individual contributors, the highest value function is lightening the burden above us to increase the total resource the organization can devote to the highest value activities. Push your boss up the pyramid.
*Politics is Managing Relationships with Opponents*
Take opponents here to mean groups without perfectly overlapping interests. Manager tools say politics are what executives call collaboration. There’s no point in complaining about politics. Work on the relationship instead.
Not Unreasonable 