The Poetic Workspace

Abstract

Traditional management education has been widely criticized for an overemphasis on rational, analytic, arms-length approaches to the detriment of softer, more intuitive capacities. Most critics agree that today’s management students are overdrilled in the routines of calculation and analysis, but underprepared for the dynamic and turbulent settings in which managers often find themselves. The arts-based movement has emerged as a corrective to these tendencies. The core of this work involves the transformation of the classroom into an “aesthetic workspace” in which student learning is enhanced through dynamic encounters with art-objects. This article extends the notion of aesthetic workspace to the realm of language itself. It describes a “poetic workspace” in which metaphor is leveraged to create holistic connections between personal insights, appreciation of others, and the content of the course.