Wednesday, July 25, 2007

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“Poets are our original systems thinkers,” he said. “They look at our most complex environments and they reduce the complexity to something they begin to understand.”

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3 comments:

A. D. said...

I was fascinated by this article, but I was bothered by "'I used to tell my senior staff to get me poets as managers' [. . .] He never could find a poet who was willing to be a manager."

Just seems so disingenuous to me. I really doubt this was something he said frankly to his senior staff. I long ago took poetry off my resume after noting the reaction it got from hiring managers. I may not be a Poet, but I'll manage.

And since when does Camus' Stranger deal with "the dignity of working life"? The Prince is less of a surprise—and more fitting—and, I'll admit, now I want to go look again at Khayyam's Rubaiyat. Where's The Art of War or the Nietzsche I'd expect?

Perhaps I'm just sour on CEO's (or maybe I soured to the article when it mentioned The Da Vinci Code). I'd love to talk to one who reads as these claim to, though. I can only imagine what sort of intellectually elaborate means they use to turn the corporate world into something epic. That itself is an act of poesis.

Then again, by his accounting, our president is better read than I.

Maybe I'll put poetry back on my resume, for shits.

Suzanne said...

I'm having a hard time believing their claims in general. I don't buy it -- I feel as if it's some media advisor's orchestration -- perhaps I'm too cynical.

Regardless, it's great to read your response. To borrow a phrase from that glittery
socialite, "That's hot." ;-)

A. D. said...

Maybe we're wrong. . . .

At Peter's, Justin writes, "One of the stats I quoted to my students when I taught English, was that during a survey, 75% of CEO's attributed a large portion of their success in business to a strong background in literature."

And Dana writes "I just interviewed with a CEO today in Seattle, and he was very, very interested in the fact that I write poetry. He saw my background in literature and my poetry-writing as an asset because, in his words, I would be bring to the table something nobody else at their organization has."

Now that would be hot.