Today is World Poetry Day.
And yes, I use poetry in business.
I know how that sounds. Poetry can feel soft. Fluffy. A long way from performance, targets, and delivery. But I've been using it in organisational settings for over 25 years now, and I've come to believe something quite firmly: metaphors paint a thousand pictures. And a picture paints a thousand words.
When people see their situation differently, they act differently. That's not soft. That's the whole point.
Poetry doesn't tell people what to think. It bypasses defensiveness, invites reflection, and creates the conditions for insight to arrive on its own terms, which is often the only way insight will arrive at all.
Over the years, three poems in particular have found their way into rooms where things have got a bit stuck. Not because I planned it that way, but because they keep being the right thing for the moment.
This one turns up in self-awareness conversations, in inclusion and diversity work, and whenever a team is struggling to understand why they're not quite understanding each other.
My normal isn't your normal - yours isn't mine.
It isn't today, never was, and will never be.
It shifts the conversation from judgement to perspective. From "why don't they get it?" to "what if their normal is genuinely different from mine?" That's a more useful place to be.
This one is for when communication has broken down, and blame has started filling the space.
It's no wonder we fail when we believe that it's a brick wall we're talking to
Rather than realising there's someone on the other side of the brick wall
A someone we wish to relate to
Something shifts when people hear this. The "problem" stops being the other person. Ownership becomes possible in a way it wasn't before. That's a significant move, and it rarely happens through a conversation that stays entirely in logic.
This is the one for when the destination feels less certain than anyone is comfortable admitting. For strategy conversations, for moments of change, for the times when someone needs permission to not know yet.
Other paths
A knowing that we need to take the path
Even if we don't know why
Just an excitement of the unknown, calling for our inner wisdom to be revealed
Someone shared this poem recently in a conversation about mindfulness and not knowing. She said it reminded her that the space between can be valuable. That sometimes not knowing is exactly where we need to be. That's what this poem has always done - it holds the uncertainty rather than rushing past it.
Poetry in business isn't about making a room feel more creative, or softening a difficult message, or adding something unexpected to an away day.
It's about insight. Shift. Action.
When the usual conversation isn't getting anywhere, something different is needed. And sometimes that something is a few lines that reach the parts a policy document never quite reaches.
If you'd like to experience what poetry does in your organisation, do get in touch at alison@alisonsmith.co or find out more about the Landscaping Your Life approach.
