It’s not often that a blog post makes me laugh out loud but this one did.
Guru has decided to pick a fight with executive coach David Adams. In a post entitled The Cringe of Coaching, he had a go at David’s motivational poetry, examples of which can be found on his blog, especially this piece about coaching, which includes the line “Embracing excellence, embracing friends, charging fees”.
A clearly piqued David responded by saying that no-one has ever put up a statue to a critic. I’m not sure that anyone has ever put up a statue to an executive coach either but, in these strange times, nothing would surprise me and that fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square is still free.
To be fair, the poem that Guru laid into was, I think, composed of one-liners that David had heard during a coaching conference, so he was only reflecting back (or should we say “holding up the mirror to”?) what the delegates had said. Reading the rest of his poetry, I suspect that most of it is made up from similar sound-bites. At least, I hope it is because some of it is truly toe-curling, like the one that starts, “Let’s be on the same page”.
David Adams has achieved what I would have thought to be impossible. He has turned corporate jargon into poetry. That sounds like a masterpiece of satirical irony - except that I think David is actually serious about this stuff.
My first reaction on reading these poems is to reach for the sick-bag but the weird thing is, it seems to work for some people, judging by the comments from participants on David’s web site. That said, I feel sorry for the wife and children of Fred O who now get poems written for them at Christmas.
Seriously, though, I would be interested to hear other people’s reactions to the poetry of David Adams. Could you see your directors going for it? Have you been on something similar which has produced positive and lasting results for you and your team?
Or is this just more corporate snake-oil designed to separate gullible executives from their management development budgets?
Answers, opinions, prejudiced comments and jaundiced views in the usual place, please.
I guess this is what one would call “found poetry” and David appears to be serious about it.
I want my MTV. Give me Peter Cook!