Gentle Moments: What Poetry Taught Me About Operations

There's a line in one of my poems:

"Stack up like shells and stones / my recollections in linear patterns."

I wrote it about memory. About belonging. About the way we arrange our past to make sense of the present.

I didn't realise I was describing operations.

Poetry and business operations seem worlds apart.

One deals with feeling. The other with function.

One prizes ambiguity. The other demands clarity.

One celebrates the inexplicable. The other eliminates uncertainty.

But they're more connected than you think.

Both are about creating meaning from chaos.

When I worked with a micro-brand last month, their operations were like a first draft poem. All the elements were there—inventory systems, customer service processes, financial tracking—but they didn't flow together.

No rhythm. No connection. No meaning.

Just scattered pieces hoping to become something whole.

In poetry, this is called fragmentation.

In business, we call it operational chaos.

The solution is the same: find the thread that connects everything.

In poetry, that thread is often a recurring image. A central metaphor. A consistent voice.

In operations, it's your core purpose. Your reason for existing.

Every system, every process, every decision should connect back to that thread.

Poetry taught me that less can be more.

The best poems say the most with the fewest words. They trust the reader to fill in the gaps. They create space for meaning to emerge.

The best operational systems work the same way.

They don't try to control everything. They create frameworks that allow good decisions to emerge naturally.

Over-engineering kills poetry. It kills operations too.

I've seen micro-brands create 47-step customer onboarding processes. Detailed workflows that account for every possible scenario. Systems so complex they require systems to manage the systems.

But elegance lies in simplicity.

The haiku has just seventeen syllables. Yet it can capture the essence of a season, a feeling, a moment of profound truth.

Your operations should be the same. Simple enough to understand. Flexible enough to adapt. Powerful enough to create the experience you want.

Poetry taught me about pauses.

The space between words. The breath between lines. The silence that gives meaning to sound.

Operations need pauses too.

Time to reflect. Space to adjust. Moments to check whether you're still moving toward your purpose.

Most founders rush from task to task, process to process, crisis to crisis.

But wisdom lives in the pauses.

Poetry taught me that iteration is everything.

No poem emerges perfect. The first draft captures the essence. The second draft refines the structure. The third finds the rhythm. The fourth discovers the unexpected image that makes everything click.

Operations work the same way.

Version 1.0 of your customer service process won't be perfect. It doesn't need to be.

It needs to be good enough to start. Clear enough to follow. Simple enough to improve.

Then you iterate. Always iterate.

Poetry taught me to trust the process.

Sometimes you sit down to write about love and end up writing about loss. The poem knows where it wants to go, even when you don't.

Sometimes you design a system for one thing and discover it solves a different problem entirely.

Trust that. Follow where the work leads you.

Your operations have their own intelligence.

Pay attention to where they break down. Where they feel effortless. Where they surprise you.

They're trying to tell you something.

Poetry and operations both require the same quality:

Gentle attention.

The ability to notice what's working and what isn't. To sense the rhythm underneath the chaos. To trust that meaning will emerge if you create the right conditions.

I call these "gentle moments."

Pauses in the chaos where clarity emerges.

Spaces between the urgent tasks where wisdom appears.

Moments when you step back and see the whole poem of your business.

Your operations are poetry in motion.

They have rhythm. They have purpose. They have the power to create meaning from chaos.

The question is: what kind of poem are you writing?