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Creativity is one of the most sought-after qualities in today’s leaders. It is also difficult to identify and measure—and seemingly in short supply. All too often, “thinking outside the box” lacks spark and imagination. This book offers a fresh approach, revealing how poetry and the ways poets think can inform and inspire creative activity in other walks of life.
Frances McCue—a practicing poet with experience leading start-ups—shares the surprising lessons poets can teach current and aspiring executives about creativity, leadership, and collaboration. She shows how poetry’s particular forms of language and thought inspire readers to approach problems in unexpected and effective new ways. Thinking like a poet can help workplaces open up to innovation and question conventional wisdom; it can help team members communicate with energetic and surprising expressions that build their individual and collective voices.
The Poet in the C-Suite features stories of leaders across professions who apply poetic thinking in their work, ranging from an investment banker, a media mogul, and an international sales executive to a polar bear scientist, a craft beverage entrepreneur, and a roboticist. Both eye-opening and practical, this book is for all readers, including poets, who seek to cultivate artistry and self-expression within their workplaces.
— Liz Lerman, dance choreographer
My experiences as a practicing civil engineer and a poet for most of my adult life—or a poet-engineer—have led me to firmly believe that I am a better engineer because I’m a poet. Thinking like a poet has helped me approach familiar and challenging design problems in innovative ways. In The Poet in the C-Suite, Frances McCue gives credence to what I’ve believed. Indeed, the writing and study of poetry has genuine capacity to make anyone better, more successful, and fulfilled in whatever they do. McCue offers us proof-positive of this, not just through a philosophical or theoretical lens but through solid research and practical examples.
— Richard Blanco, 2013 presidential inaugural poet