Humor, Seriously: Why Humor is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life
by Jennifer Aaker & Naomi Bagdonas
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The Net-Net
Laughter works wonders to increase trust and happiness and reduce stress (it’s science, there are hormones involved). In turn, this can increase power, relationships, creativity, and resilience in all areas of our lives, including at work. While Humor, Seriously takes us on an amusing journey through the anatomy of a joke and why we find things funny, it also drags us Non-Comedian Business People (similar to, but not to be confused with, Non Athletic Regular People) along for the ride to provide imminently practical tips for bringing laughter to the peaks and valleys of our careers and our everyday.
Top 3 Insights
- Adopt a mindset of levity: “Levity is a mindset—an inherent state of receptiveness to (and active seeking of) joy.” Adopting a mindset of levity, looking for reasons to laugh and being open to being delighted, puts you that much closer to laughter. Laughter is a gift to others in that it puts you and them at ease and introduces humanity into relationships that may be inclined toward transaction. Lower the bar for what will make you laugh and you will be happier. (Chapter 1)
- Emails can be a powerful, low stakes conduit for humor and relationship building: Emails at work are usually a breeding ground for corporate
BSjargon. As a result, they are a great place to surprise someone with your personality. Refer back to something funny that happened in your in person meeting, add a P.S. with levity, or introduce a non-traditional or personalized sign-off (e.g. when asking for a favor: With fingers and toes crossed, ). Being a real (funny-ish) person in your email is a reminder that you are a real person in real life (just like the recipient!). (Chapter 4) - Humor is so positively powerful it’s worth the perceived risk of failure: One of the reasons people don’t want to be funny at work is because it can be risky (my jokes are probably being met with crickets, but I’m still taking the risk). Not just risky that people don’t laugh, but that our joke may actually offend or strike the wrong chord. It’s a fair concern, but the authors spend 200 pages telling us how important humor is and, helpfully, 30 pages giving advice on how to avoid the foot-in-mouth issue and what to do if you make a mistake (happens to the best of us). In short: don’t punch down, don’t use anyone’s identity as prop, plot point, or punch line. If you do say something that lands poorly, recognize, diagnose, make it right. They also give a helpful framework (truth, pain, distance) to help us navigate these gray areas! (Chapter 7)
Actionability
Sometimes the advice is so straightforward I can’t believe I’m reading it in a book. For example, “Repeat after us: I promise to laugh more.” There’s a whole section devoted to explaining that it’s important to laugh and telling readers to simply look for reasons to laugh in order to increase their humor and approachability… at first I said, “what has our world come to that I need to be told to laugh” and then I realized I could not answer their diagnostic of “when was the last time you really laughed”… Simple mandates like this one in addition to insights about low-hanging-fruit opportunities to introduce humor make this book worth its weight in laughs.
- Create an authentically funny OOO message.
- Identify some signature funny stories + think about how to make them better.
- Start a “quote of the week” tradition on my work team.
Good Stories
There are lots of illustrative anecdotes that bring the authors’ tips and strategies to life in helpful ways. Some of the stories even provide ideas that I would directly replicate (+1 for applicability score above!). Nothing too deep or sticky, but helpful and engaging nonetheless. Plus, the stories are funny (it’s a book about humor).
- Margaret Thatcher singing a duet with her Russian counterpart following tense diplomacy talks.
- A young upstart using a joke to challenge and reset a client CEO’s bad attitude.
- Sarah Blakely sending single shoes to “get her foot in the door” with key retailers.
Key Quotes
- “When we laugh, our brains release a coctail of hormones that make us feel happier (dopamine), more trusting (oxytocin), less stressed (lowered cortisol), and even slightly euphoric (endorphins). By working humor into our professional interactions, we can serve our colleagues this powerful hormone cocktail, and in doing so we can literally change their—and our—brain chemistry on the spot… Shared laughter quickens the path to candor and vulnerability [by increasing trust]. What’s more, it’s one of the few ways to release oxytocin at work that’s still permitted by HR.” (43; 54)
- “By dropping the formal facade and totally committing to silliness, [Steph] Curry raised the energy in the room, and with it, the potential for what the group might accomplish. He made it clear that this was a space where they didn’t have to take themselves too seriously, even though they were there to get serious work done…Humans are social creatures; we’re inclined to mirror the highest-status individual in our midst, which means that leaders can keep things light and create the conditions necessary for good work by walking the walk.” (129)
If This Were an MBA Class, it Would Be Called:
Funny enough, this actually is an MBA class at Stanford called “Humor: Serious Business.” Aaker and Bagdonas took this job away from us (phew).
Best For:
- Any career level
- New job holders
- Recently-promoted employees
Can’t get enough? Consider:
- Aaker and Bagdonas explore the same topic in their TED talk: “Why great leaders take humor seriously”
- Here are some ideas for creative OOO messages from Grammarly.
- To take a deeper look into company culture, check out Delivering Happiness, the Zappos story. CEO Tony Hsieh is famous for having created an incredible culture that relied on good humor. This includes core values like: “Create Fun and a Little Weirdness” and “Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit.” The famous core values are helped along by humor and the mindset that allows it.
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