2010 - Public Relations Society of America

Professor Clare Morgan at Oxford notes that poetry is valued for the business
strategist in ways that are not normally understood in the business world. She states: “
Reading poetry, for example, generates conceptual spaces that may be different from the
spaces available to business strategists. These spaces are different because they are
associative rather than causal; are imaginative rather than deductive; offer new ways of
assessing relations between things; and encourages a radical skepticism about the nature
of fact,” (Morgan, 2010, p. 23).
The Boston Consulting Group decided to join forces with Oxford to promote
poetry in the professions because it recognized the discipline of strategy has often been
reduced to a narrow toolbox, and what was needed was a broader appeal that poetry can
bring to business problems. Poetry is starting to make its way in the field of advertising
and public relations. An ad for the Wonderbra states: Wonderbra for the way you are.
This is communicated with a device T.S. Eliot coined as the auditory imagination. It has
suggestions and meanings that resonate with the words of the ad that go beyond mere
logic. Morgan et al (2010) notes “ that the beyond logic message goes something like
this: If you don’t buy this bra, before long you may find you are a non-woman.” This
device of auditory imagination helps the writer of ads or public relations material expand
his or her message to the consumer that does not depend solely on logic or fact. In short,
the poetic words in the ad for the Wonderbra reaches the consumer’s mind in a totally
pleasing way that can affect the decision to purchase the product.
From the research at Oxford and the work of the Boston Consulting Group, it
appears that one can also teach aspects of values and ethics with poetry. For instance, the
researchers believe that poetry can help strip away the old ways of seeing events and help
an executive review the situation with the freedom of a new perspective. The Frost poem
“ The Road Not Traveled” is a very good example of complex decision-making at a
critical junction in life. In the case of business leaders from Toyota and BP, for example,
they could examine recent decisions that led to dire consequences for the public by not
taking alternative roads albeit more expensive and time consuming. This approach could
be the springboard of a large-scale public airing on topics important to the American
consumer and global citizens.
Poetry, Values and Decision Making
Poetry, in many ways, can help shape or reframe our values. It is the power of
poetry to move a professional by showing him or her an alternative viewpoint and giving
him or her a chance to practice moral courage. The image, rhythm, sound pattern and
syntax of the poem give rise to feelings that help us think deeply about important issues
or messages. And, it may make us also look at issues and messages from different angles
as a detached observer.
In his book Changing Minds, Harvard educator Howard Gardner argues “artists
changes minds different from scientists and leaders of nation. Artists rather than
employing theories, ideas, and concepts, tend to introduce new ideas, skills, and
practices” (Morgan et al 2010, p 166). New movements and shifts in art, music, and
poetry often change the way we see ourselves in the world, a good reason to study poetry
and make it part of our working life. At West Point, the study of poetry has become part
of a cadet’s life on campus. Cadets at the Point spend sixteen weeks studying poetry from
the ancients to the present day. Lt. General James Lennox who has responsibility for the
West Point curriculum believes that poetry is important to the development of the highest
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