> One rough argument made in the book is for workers performing roles with work that can be completely specified by superiors, it's less necessary for workers to demonstrate they can conform to how their employer wants them to think, provided they do the work. For professional roles involving more intellectual work where an employee's day to day tasks cannot be completely specified in advance, it's important for such employees to demonstrate they can think how the organisation wishes them to think, so an important part of training for these roles is essentially political training.

Great summary. I guess my qualm is that this is not necessarily political. I'll admit it often is, but in my field I think people are often dedicated to bad ideas because of what I see as institutional inertia, the sunk cost fallacy, or not liking math, not just politics.