The Hidden Job Of The Internal Champion

When a product hits the skids, the frameworks and processes meant to keep teams aligned collapse under pressure — the forces they were designed to manage become implicit, confused, or ignored. That’s when the absence of a strong internal champion in product management becomes clear.

Teams end up slipping on the boxing gloves and bouncing around in circles in the rear car park, or shipping work that skews from the desired outcome, or everyone freezes when the stakes rise and looks to the corner office. Then somebody whispers “I think it’s an execution problem”. Everyone sighs and starts scurrying around looking for a thing to fix in the process.

Product organisations already operate inside a system of tension, whether it’s named or not. The job of product leadership isn’t to eliminate that tension, because it’s an important calibration tool. It needs to be held deliberately and used smartly to ensure that ambition doesn’t become fantasy and delivery doesn’t drift.

And this is where the internal champion becomes one of the most undervalued roles in modern product work. Not the person who ‘owns the pitch.’ Not the person who keeps a programme alive because they just can’t let it go. The champion is the person who helps the team to wrestle with tension across ideas, constraints, governance, and accountability.

We recently ran some buyer research on behalf of a client, focused on platform decisions. Across interviews with senior technology leaders, one pattern held without exception: when a platform or approach progressed beyond initial interest, a credible internal advocate was there to hold the torch. Someone willing to carry responsibility for advancing it politically, operationally, and reputationally. Where advocacy was absent you could expect adoption to tank, if it appeared at all.

And it’s exactly the same dynamic that makes product work succeed or stall.

Perfect vs Possible: Two forces Held At The same time

Lazy product debates can be anchored around as a false choice: It’s ‘vision vs execution’ or, ‘long-term direction vs near-term delivery’. Neat framing for sure, but It’s also one of the most damaging patterns in product organisations. It turns a system of interconnected forces that rise and fall together, into a binary argument.

Perfect and Possible are not opposites. They make sense when viewed in relation to one another.

Perfect is an orienting reference point for what great could look like. It is not a roadmap. It is not a target. It is not an end-state. It gives meaning and direction and doesn’t ask you for certainty.

Possible is how progress happens under constraint. But Possible has two distinct modes that are often collapsed into one:

• Possible Now: what can be done today. This is execution, sequencing, trade-offs, learning from real outcomes. It is shaped by capacity, skills, systems, incentives, and time. It’s where credibility is earned and momentum is built. That injection of adrenaline, the sweet high of full fat coke.
• Possible Next: what could be unlocked beyond today. This is horizon thinking, step-change opportunity, and strategic imagination. It’s not bound by current feasibility. It explores futures before committing to them.

Healthy product organisations don’t pick between these forces, they work hard to weave them together.

Three governing principles matter in that process:

1. Possible Now must not be judged against Perfect, or momentum collapses. Energy is important.
2. Possible Next must not be constrained by Possible Now, or ambition evaporates. Big thinking.
3. Perfect must not be operationalised, or aspiration gets dragged across a cheese grater as the downward pressure increases

Good product practice isn’t just the adoption of the right framework, but the governance and balancing of these forces so teams aren’t in a constant state of bouncing between extremes.

Product Work Can Suck, Even With Strong Frameworks

When organisations struggle, it often looks like confusion rather than conflict. Let’s assume positive intent. Everyone is trying to do the right thing. But the system collapses in on itself under pressure from one dominant force.

When Perfect Dominates

Teams become brittle. Great ideas become immovable benchmarks. Exploration morphs into commitment. Early prototypes are assessed like production masterpieces. Progress slows because nothing feels ‘good enough.’

In our recent buyer research, this shows up as platforms being treated as solid architectural commitments written in ink rather than neutral tools, and leaders quickly shifting from a healthy
curiosity to a defensive posture; concerns like governance, exit paths, and long-term cost.

When Possible Now Dominates

Organisations become efficient but small. Backlogs morph into overarching strategy documents.
A ripping pace in the delivery team becomes a defining measurement of progress. Teams ship continuously, while quietly shrinking ambition because it no longer fits the system.

This is a common success trap in product organisations: celebration of activity, despite it having low meaning.

When Possible Next Dominates

Organisations become articulate but display a skewed sense of reality. There’s a rich pipeline of ideas, narratives, and big bets that generates a lie of hi-fives and sage nodding, but no credible path into delivery under real constraints. Strategy becomes theatre because it doesn’t survive integration, governance scrutiny, or whether you can actually deliver the damned thing.

Notable in our recent research as leaders stress test technology promises against their lived experience, particularly around integration complexity and what really happens outside of the
happy path the sales team is spinning. Vague assurances and hyperbole gnaws away at trust very quickly.

The Internal Champion’s Real Job: Regulating Tension

The internal champion doesn’t win by persuading people the idea is good. They win by helping the organisation hold the system of forces long enough to make a positive move.

This is why the research finding about advocacy is so important: champions weren’t described as mere ‘enthusiasts.’ They were described as accountable, prepared to answer difficult questions about risk, governance, cost, and long-term impact. This is tension governance.

Broader research backs this up. Howell & Higgins’ landmark study on champions of technological innovation found champions used transformational leader behaviours more often than non-champions, showed higher risk-taking and innovativeness, initiated more influence attempts, and used a wider variety of influence tactics.

Champions aren’t just supportive, they’re gloves-on, shirtsleeves rolled up, and taking on resistance to create positive movement forwards. Movement between the forces – Perfect, Possible Next, Possible Now – without letting one collapse the system.

All The Right Moves for an Internal Champion in Product Management

If you want more reliable progress in product work, resist jumping forwards to ask “Do we have the right framework?”

Consider:

• Which force is dominating our system right now?
• Where are we collapsing Perfect into pressure?
• Where are we confusing Possible Next for commitment?
• Where are we treating Possible Now as the ceiling rather than the floor?

And most importantly:

• Do we have a champion who can hold the system together, through the moments where accountability is needed?

If you’d like to discuss how to better balance vision, delivery, and future opportunity in your product work, get in touch with Brainmates here.