- Original Poster
- #1
Lunchtime is probably as good a time as any to slip in this edited extract from 'Humor Is Serious Business' (https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/humor-serious-business).
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You're not as funny as you should be, and your business is suffering because of it.
People want authenticity. If you're not a joke teller, don't practice joke telling. Practice being yourself.
In negotiations, humor can make you more persuasive.
In one example, when the sellers concluded their final offer with the humorous line '...and I'll throw in my pet frog', they gained more concessions.
Humor also increases power through memorability... meetings run the spectrum from tedium to sadness, so if someone is willing to take the risk to create some levity, there's value in that. People remember it. The brain doesn't pay attention to boring things.
Many-to-most CEOs prefer job candidates with a sense of humor, and think people with a sense of humor do better work.
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You're not as funny as you should be, and your business is suffering because of it.
- You're not funny. Because you're a businessperson.
- It's probable you used to have a sense of humor. Or have a good one when you're not doing businessy things.
- An effective and underleveraged tool... offering competitive advantage against peers, higher retention rates of employees, innovative solutions, and teams that are more resilient to stress... it helps build bonds, increase trust, and strengthen cultures.
- Get good at self-deprecating... which is the opposite of everything you've ever done.
Self-deprecation humanizes us, helps creates connections, and makes people think the self-deprecator is more powerful than he/she is (if he/she can afford to mock themself, they must be confident in their abilities).
Don't 'punch down' by making an employee the butt of your joke. Instead, punch yourself.
Hiroki Asai purposely arrived late to a meeting and then had a colleague play footage of him asking the cleaning woman for advice on how to run the company.
She slapped him in the face and told him to get a grip... becoming the hero and Asai's foil in further videos.
She slapped him in the face and told him to get a grip... becoming the hero and Asai's foil in further videos.
- Use humor to highlight shared viewpoints or common enemies.
People want authenticity. If you're not a joke teller, don't practice joke telling. Practice being yourself.
In negotiations, humor can make you more persuasive.
In one example, when the sellers concluded their final offer with the humorous line '...and I'll throw in my pet frog', they gained more concessions.
Humor also increases power through memorability... meetings run the spectrum from tedium to sadness, so if someone is willing to take the risk to create some levity, there's value in that. People remember it. The brain doesn't pay attention to boring things.
Many-to-most CEOs prefer job candidates with a sense of humor, and think people with a sense of humor do better work.
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