John Barr long has straddled two worlds. When he worked at Morgan Stanley and watched the investment banking firm grow from 200 people to 10,000 employees over 18 years, colleagues sometimes rolled their eyes when he spoke of poetry. His personal interest in poetry continued as he founded three companies, including the energy trading giant Dynegy Corporation.

Now, as president of The Poetry Foundation — publisher of the influential magazine Poetry, which helped discover such poets as Ezra Pound, TS Eliot, Robert Frost, and Marianne Moore — he has stepped fully into his passion for poetry. In a session in June with participants in Wharton's Advanced Management Program, he discussed lessons from poetry for business.

Keeping Open to Ambiguity

Barr said that managers can learn from poetry about handling ambiguity. "I think a life of poetry has made me a better businessman because it has kept me more open to ambiguity and more willing to postpone closure," Barr said. "When you make a business decision, there is a strong desire to simplify. A poem tries to embrace reality in all its complexity. It doesn't simplify prematurely. It keeps you open to the full ambiguity of the problem."

Most business dealings are filled with ambiguity. "A merger is an immensely complex thing," Barr said. "Putting questions of egos aside, you have to examine many finance and business issues, and you have to take human considerations into account. The full embrace of the situation is important."

Business and poetry are not as different as they might appear at first. "The business of the poet and business of a business person are the same at heart," Barr said. "Both are in the business of creating order out of chaos, taking reality around us, and turning it into something. The poet is making sense of the internal world. The businessman is making sense of the outside world. In both cases, they are creating order out of chaos. Both poetry and business draw their waters out of the same well."

The Poet as Salesman

He said poets also can teach managers about how to persuade others to follow their lead. "Don't think of the people we are talking about as poets," he said. "Think of them as the world's most effective public speakers. They have mastered the techniques of using language to persuade people to go where they want them to go."

While poetry is often considered a solitary art in which the poet pours his or her heart onto the paper, the message is always designed to reach an audience and influence the reader. "Poetry is not about self expression as much as it is about communication," Barr said. "Poetry is a private thing, but it is always written to be overheard."

Poets use their writing to get the reader to see the world in a certain way. "I think about all the salesmen I worked with on large mergers in utilities," Barr said. "They were getting companies with two sets of vested interests to buy into a common idea. Poets are also being salesmen. They are seeking to show you their point of view and get you to agree with it."

Poets and gifted public communicators such as Winston Churchill are able to "take the things we half know and turn them into a thought," Barr said. "This makes us participate in it and makes us part of the process."

Bringing Back Passion

Poetry offers important lessons about the importance of tone and passion in communications. "In many ways, business communication is often about logic," Barr noted. "Poetry is about passion — the things that move you."

This passion can be important in business. "The strongest business communication has room for personality in it," Barr said. "Even though the culture may want to hear something flat, there is tremendous value in personality. Part of what we are talking about is the difference between being a leader and being a manager. When you rise to CEO level, at that point you have to bring in your own personality, value sets, and voice. "

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