Professor David Weir presents 'The Poetry of Management'
Location: The Auditorium, UCS Waterfront Building, Ipswich
Date: 15 November 2011
Time: 5.30pm - 7.30pm
CP Snow famously argued that the problem with British society is that it divides into “two cultures” - many people would put poetry into one “culture” and “management” into another. Some even claim that “management” is an exact science, but it is not: it is an art as much as a science. It is affected and constrained by all the ways in which we relate to other people, as colleagues, employees and clients.
In this presentation Professor David Weir considers how these two genres overlap and inform each other. The presentation is illustrated with examples of poetry, David’s own and that of other people. It attempts to explain a position from a personal and partial framework, not as an objective critique of poetry operating within different communities of practice, but as a subjective exposition of what it may be like to function as a member of three apparently separate milieux, as full-time professor of management, as sometime manager within a number of complex organisations in the public and private sectors, and as a would-be working poet.
This role-set is an unbalanced one, in David’s own case according strongest weight to the role of professor and weakest to that of poet, but this is a matter of achieved outcome rather than of aspiration or identification.
Profile
Professor David Weir
David Weir is Head of School of Business, Leadership and Enterprise at UCS. He graduated from Oxford University in Politics, Philosophy and Economics in 1960 and continued postgraduate study there in Sociology and Public and Social Administration.
Throughout his academic career he has led four University Business Schools as Director of the Bradford Management School, Head of the Glasgow University Business School, Dean and Director of the Newcastle Business School and Dean of the Scottish Business School. He was also Chair of the UK Association of Business Schools and is a Visiting Professor for numerous universities including Lancaster University, one of the most highly rated Management Schools in the UK.