Why Poetry Appears in Business Thinking

Poetry is often associated with metaphor and creativity.

However, the relevance of poetry to business thinking goes beyond metaphor.

Poetic Business Thinking (PBT) approaches this relationship from three perspectives.

1. Structural Similarity of Thought

The structure of thinking that leads to decision-making is similar to the structure of thinking involved in creating poetry.

This similarity becomes especially visible when thinking deals not with correct answers, but with possibilities.

・Decision-making process

Expansion (Leap) → Selection → Action

・Poetic creation

Defamiliarization → Selection → Expression

Both expansion and defamiliarization are ways of recognizing facts from a new perspective.

2. Application of Poetic Techniques

Poetry contains techniques that introduce discontinuous perspectives—moments when thinking temporarily steps outside existing logic.

In PBT, this leap is treated as a method of thinking.

It creates the possibility of forming a new hypothesis when existing causal explanations no longer produce movement.

3. Tolerance for Ambiguity

Poetry allows multiple interpretations by its readers.

In business contexts, especially under uncertainty, a hypothesis failing does not necessarily mean failure.

It often represents the exploration of possibilities.

For this reason, thinking that can tolerate ambiguity becomes essential.

Why can poetry also be useful in business?

It is not only because of creativity as one possible benefit.

The deeper reason is that the structure of thinking itself is similar. Because of this structural similarity, poetic thinking can be applied in many different situations.

That is why Poetic Business Thinking (PBT) uses the thinking structure and techniques of poetry as tools for thought.