We tend to trust people who make us laugh or smile. Laughter connects us at a visceral level and implies common experiences and values. We perceive such individuals as “safe” and “like-minded,” and feel more comfortable confiding in them.
As most of us know, humor can also be used to belittle someone, undermine a situation or win an argument. While these humor practices seldom provide long-term workplace benefits or build a cohesive team, it is important to acknowledge and respect the dark side of humor’s power.
If you know what people in your organization are laughing about, you know what is going on. The kind of humor they use will tell you how healthy—or unhealthy—your organization is, and whether its real core values match those posted on the company website. The following Humor Hint List, identifies a few of the
insights a leader gains by paying attention to their workplace humor.
7 Humor Hints Leaders and Aspiring Leaders
Need to Know
1. There is humor in every workplace. If you don’t see any humor in your office, it means that it has gone underground. And if you don’t know about it, you are cut off from the pulse of your organization.
Underground humor is often sarcastic, often directed at specific individuals or company values and seldom supportive of good service or high quality.
2. Humor is knowledge. Are the jokes you do hear positive or negative? Are they about service or quality? Do they strike at unions, clients, competitors, patients or management? Are they about one department, division or project? Do they include people or exclude them?
In isolation, jokes don’t mean much, but a rash of jokes on the same topic, from different sources, is worth attending to. If the recurring topic is difficult customers, it could indicate that your customer service policy (or customer service reward system) needs tweaking. If the jokes are about another department or a staff group, it may mean that a personality conflict or a systemic issue is undermining communication, and, as a result, productivity. If they are about wasting time in meetings, it may be a clue that you need to upgrade your
meeting skills.
3. Humor is usually initiated by the higher
status person.
An old maxim goes: If the joke you told wasn't funny, yet everyone laughed—you're the boss!
In a work environment, the boss’ sense of humor (or lack thereof) is inevitably reflected by the staff. They not only laugh at the boss’s jokes, but often try to tell similar ones to their own staff and colleagues. Ideally, they laugh because the boss is genuinely funny. Be advised, however, that in some settings, they laugh because failing, or worse yet, refusing, to laugh at the boss’s jokes can be seen as insubordination. At the other end of the continuum, more than one person in a leadership position has interpreted a subordinate’s wise cracks in a meeting as a threat or leadership challenge. If the boss is male and the subordinate is a female or a younger male, the sense of threat often increases.
4. Humor is not inherently good or bad it’s all in how it is used. We’ve all seen a well-timed humorous remark blow an idea, regardless of its merit, out of the water. We’ve also seen a similarly timed one ensure the acceptance of an idea—or at least extinguish debate on any competing proposals. That’s a sample of the power that humor, wielded by an expert, can exert.
5. Humor can speed or slow change. Humor that is sexist, racist or homophobic, or humor that is against outside people or ideas, is usually designed to maintain the status quo. It reinforces stereotypes, limits thinking to gender-or ethnically-based roles, and makes staff afraid to take the risks that come with “thinking outside the box.” Humor that is supportive and inclusive invites change by helping to create an environment that encourages risk taking and the creative problem solving that accompanies it.
6. Be careful about using sarcasm—especially when you’re the boss. Sarcasm can be fun, no two ways about it! The subtle put-down, the well-timed eye roll, the double entendre that, when directed at someone else, gives us an “in crowd” feeling—these can be
addictive sensations.
The problem is that sarcasm creates an “us” verses “them” dynamic. It is always divisive. In the workplace, it can undermine morale and loyalty—an effect that is amplified when there is a power difference. Sarcastic remarks between boss and subordinate, physician and patient, or clerk and customer, often carry far more weight than their initiator intended. Of all forms of humor, a sarcastic remark gone wrong is the most difficult to recover from. I am not saying to ban sarcasm from your life entirely, I’m just urging you to restrict sarcasm to interactions between “consenting adults.”
7. You don’t need to be a clown to increase workplace humor. If you are in a leadership role, and don't see yourself as inordinately funny, an easy way to create laughter in your workplace is to support the humor of others around you. Build a creative, positive workplace simply by providing a framework that encourages the playful, inventive, supportive side of your staff, colleagues, clients, customers or patients to emerge.
Ask them to share their humor with you. Laugh at their jokes. Leaven the action with a leading line like: “Tell me something funny that happened to you recently,” or “Tell me about a success you had, or saw, this week.”
Allow them to create the humor, and then sit back and enjoy it with them. Just remember, as a leader, the humor you respond to will be emulated by your team. Be sure that you respond to humor that supports the goals you want to achieve.
Dr. Patt Schwab, a former HR Manager and university administrator, is an international speaker and author on the topic of workplace humor. The above concepts are expanded upon in her book, Leave a Mark, Not a Stain! What every manager needs to know about using humor in the workplace. You can find it on the “Books” page of this website.
