Introduction

The Poetic Organization is concerned with how poetics emerges across organizational contexts. The term ‘poetics’ is not a static one, and refers to an intricate mix of subjective interiorized and exteriorized aspects dealing with the way organizational members become ‘present’ to themselves and others through their expressions, their practices, passions, interests and eloquence as connected to a fictive mode. The research for this book entailed identifying poetic elements in organizational coaching, which were explored through discussions with coaches as to how they perceived poetics in their personal and professional practices. Organizational coaching is a form of coaching that takes into account systematic aspects of processes and activities taking place across a whole organizational context. The research was undertaken by entering into engagement with nine organizational coaches about the notion of poetics and involved conducting lengthy semi-structured interviews with each coach, including embedded workshops on storytelling and automatic writing.