Forbes.com Asks, “Does Poetry Have a Place in Business?”
Stephanie Denning is a Forbes contributor, a management consultant, and a fiction writer with an interest in poetry. She recently wrote an article for Forbes titled, “Does Poetry Have a Place in Business?” and we wanted to chat with her about poetry in business.
You can probably guess our opinion on that, but let’s hear what Stephanie thinks.
She says, “I’ve been working in business now for over 10 years, and one of the things I’ve alway seen is that you’re either a business person or a creative person. But you could never be both. … But I think that the best business leaders are the ones with that crossover.” She attributes this to how “business-minded people tend to be utilitarian in nature,” and as we have seen, poetry is hard to quantify in that way.
According to Stephanie, less than 10% of the CEOs she works with read poetry and fiction on a regular basis. And that’s the issue that sparked her article: Not enough leaders actually read poetry ⸺ or any creative field for that matter. But the ones that do are the ones who bring a different level of empathy and emotional intelligence to their jobs. Poetry brings heart, and leaders should be sure to balance heart with best practices.
She cites Former President Barack Obama as an example of someone who clearly reads creative writing regularly, and that it brought “an emotional visceral level to his policymaking.”
Which brings us to the main question.
Does poetry have a place in business?
In response to this question, Stephanie asks, “Can you make poetry commercial?” And she believes most people don’t think you can, but in fact you can. She notes that the most common approach to poetry today is too academic for the mainstream. It’s too difficult for the general public to digest on first read, so most don’t give it the full academic process of multiple reads to analyze the poem.
Stephanie believes that “reaching the masses with poetry or any kind of career field should be the purpose. You should be moving people emotionally in that respect.” Also, in Stephanie’s perspective, “The big problem with poetry is the content itself is too esoteric and not comprehensible.”
And she has a point. If you want to stay in academic poetry and not commercialize, that’s completely fine and other poets won’t judge you. That’s not how the poetry community acts. But if you want to make this a career, you have to appeal to the masses. And to appeal to the masses, you need to commercialize to some degree. To a point where the content is able to resonate with a general, non-poetic audience.
We also want to note that poets should be more flexible in the presentation and writing. If you want poetry as a career, you’ll have to be able to commission a poem rather than only writing what you feel. That can be tough for some to grapple with, but the reality is that’s a path to a poetry career, and it can help alter the perspective of poetry in the eyes of the business community and general public.
“I think [it’s important to increase] access to people to reach them in different settings, whether it’s spoken word or written,” Stephanie adds. “You have to really understand it on a visceral level, and then you really start to understand the making of it before it can have a true impact.”
Most don’t view poetry as a way to move your career forward, but Stephanie notes that “[poetry] has a huge influence in terms of eloquence and speech. And that’s really undervalued.”
So let’s transition to the business side of poetry.
Think about the economics of poetry
If you want to make your poet-self more marketable to businesses, you have to be thinking of the economics of poetry. This includes things like identifying your target audience, understanding supply and demand for your work, analyzing the feedback, etc.
Stephanie explains that you can’t really “disentangle the creative pursuit from the economics and the business side of poetry. … The marketability is where you’re really trying to test ‘Is there an audience for it? Is there any kind of demand? … You have to have that feedback loop present. Because otherwise you’re never going to have an audience for whatever you’re doing.”
For example, poets can go into businesses to help explain sensitive issues in the workforce, or anything emotive. Stephanie notes, “It’s really communicating that emotion to an audience where they can empathize with it. And poetry is a great outlet to help people do that.”
As far as the platforms to use to promote your work?
Stephanie sees the value in using a platform like LinkedIn because that’s where the business mindset lives. However, she recommends still finding whatever is easiest for you as a poet to continue creating content. She says, “If you find something that’s complicated and you don’t like it, you’re probably going to stop writing. … You can segment the customers you get from the platforms but at the same time, you have to do something that’s sustainable.”
Sustainability is a crucial part of building your poetry career. You don’t want to start doing something that’s going to burn you out or take away the love you have for your craft. That’s not sustainable and not conducive to a career in poetry.
If you want to know more about Stephanie and her take on poetry in business, listen to the full podcast episode now and read her article on Forbes.com.
Stephanie’s writing explores the choices firms and leaders make and the impact of those choices. She works as a management consultant specializing in growth strategy and commercial excellence. She received a B.S. in engineering from Columbia University and an M.B.A. from N.Y.U. Stern School of Business with a specialization in strategy and economics. Read more of Stephanie’s work on Forbes.com.
