English, an Essential Product Management Skill
Question: Why is English considered an essential capacity for a PMTK product manager?
Describing the skills required of a product manager is highly dependent on the perceived type of product management.
There are four Schools of Thought in Product Management, and this answer is specific to the PMTK product manager in the Methodology approach.
English is the de facto language of business - especially in high-tech.
This is likely due to Silicon Valley's influence relative to software, the literature (books, articles, social media posts, etc.'), and the software tools, which are all in English, and the proliferation of international teams and distributed companies.
In PMTK, the product manager is a strategic communicator who engages multiple stakeholders through various communication means, including phone, email, documents, and presentations.
Through language, the PMTK product manager will be required to express thoughts, ideas, concepts, values, strategies, describe market problems, articulate customer needs, and more.
Hence, the emphasis in PMTK is that the product manager has a strong command of the English language.