Speaker 1: How many times a day do you laugh at work?
Speaker 1: I know for me, one of the things I love
Speaker 1: about Inventium is that when I talk to my team,
Speaker 1: I am guaranteed a good laugh. Even though all our
Speaker 1: communication has been virtual or on the phone for the
Speaker 1: last eighteen months, humor is so ingrained in how we communicate.
Speaker 1: We have a company WhatsApp Groove to share random funny
Speaker 1: stuff every day, and when someone on the team has
Speaker 1: a big win, I can guarantee you that many memes
Speaker 1: and gifts will get sent around to celebrate. For so
Speaker 1: many people, work is serious, but it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be that way. So how can we deliberately bring more
Speaker 1: laughs and levity into the work that we do. My
Speaker 1: name is doctor Amantha Imba. I'm an organizational psychologist and
Speaker 1: the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, And this is
Speaker 1: how I work a show about how to help you
Speaker 1: do your best work. When seventeen to twenty year olds
Speaker 1: were asked if they smiled all laughed a lot yesterday,
Speaker 1: eighty five percent said yes. Now, this figure drops to
Speaker 1: sixty percent when we hit our mid twenties, right when
Speaker 1: most of us enter the workforce. We are taught that
Speaker 1: work is serious and that serious things don't mix with
Speaker 1: humor or levity. But in fact, research suggests that bringing
Speaker 1: humor into the office will significantly improve our work. So, firstly,
Speaker 1: humor helps us get what we want. In a study
Speaker 1: that was conducted by researchers Karen O'Quinn and Joel Aronoff,
Speaker 1: participants were able to get buyers to pay an eighteen
Speaker 1: percent higher price when they used humor in their negotiation,
Speaker 1: and also, buyers reported feeling more positively towards this when
Speaker 1: humor was used, and this is despite the fact that
Speaker 1: they parted with more money. Humor also helps us remember things.
Speaker 1: In research published in the Journal of Experimental Education, students
Speaker 1: who were taught material where the teacher used humor remembered
Speaker 1: more of what they learnt compared to a group where
Speaker 1: the teacher did not make any jokes. This led to
Speaker 1: the humor group scoring eleven percent higher in their final exams. Now, also,
Speaker 1: humour helps us think more creatively, so research published in
Speaker 1: the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology explored the impact
Speaker 1: of humor on problem solving. Half of participants were asked
Speaker 1: to watch an emotionally neutral video before undertaking a creative
Speaker 1: problem solving task while the other group watched a funny video.
Speaker 1: Those who watched the funny video were twice as likely
Speaker 1: to solve the puzzle. So what happened is that laughing
Speaker 1: helped overcome functional fixedness, which is where we get stuck
Speaker 1: in the same pattern of and it helped people make
Speaker 1: new connections and associations. So there's a lot to be
Speaker 1: said for the importance of humor at work, which begs
Speaker 1: the question how do we be funnier now? A while
Speaker 1: ago I had Naomi Bagdonis on the podcast and she
Speaker 1: teaches a class in humor to stand for Business School
Speaker 1: students NBA students, no less, and is the co author
Speaker 1: of Humor Seriously. And I want to share a few
Speaker 1: of the strategies that she shared with me on how
Speaker 1: I work. So firstly, apply the rule of three. The
Speaker 1: rule of three involves making a simple list where the
Speaker 1: first two elements lead people in one direction and then
Speaker 1: the third reveals something unexpected. So remember Naomi gave an
Speaker 1: example where you know she might say, I miss so
Speaker 1: many things about in person office life. I miss the
Speaker 1: supportive eye contact, I miss spontaneous lunches with colleagues, and
Speaker 1: I miss wearing pants. So this might seem like a
Speaker 1: really simple hack, but once you start noticing frameworks like
Speaker 1: the rule of three, you'll start seeing them everywhere in comedy,
Speaker 1: and then they'll start to come more naturally to you
Speaker 1: as you're trying to incorporate humor into your everyday life. Okay,
Speaker 1: second strategy is use callbacks. Callbacks are a technique in
Speaker 1: comedy where you make reference to a moment that already
Speaker 1: got a laugh. So something Naomi shared with me with
Speaker 1: me is she said, when she's on a call, especially
Speaker 1: if it's with a new client, she will look for
Speaker 1: moments where they organically laughed together. So they're probably going
Speaker 1: to have a laugh at some point, and she'll jot
Speaker 1: down the moment where they laughed and bring it back
Speaker 1: in an email. So, for example, Naomi was recently on
Speaker 1: the phone with someone she was trying to invite to
Speaker 1: come and speak at her course at Stanford in Humor,
Speaker 1: and this person joked that he was superstitious. So Naomi
Speaker 1: wrote in the emas well, back to him, we're so
Speaker 1: hoping that you can come. We penciled you in while
Speaker 1: crossing our fingers, stroking rabbit foot key chains and throwing
Speaker 1: one thousand pennies into wishing wells that you can join us.
Speaker 1: So callbacks can be an effective strategy to apply within
Speaker 1: meetings and also emails to bring some levity to what
Speaker 1: can otherwise be places where humor is seriously lacking. Now,
Speaker 1: one final strategy that Naomi shared with me that I
Speaker 1: will share with you today, which is never punch down.
Speaker 1: So there's a ruling comedy that you never want to
Speaker 1: punch down. Naomi explains this as this means that you
Speaker 1: never want to make the target of your joke someone
Speaker 1: who is lower status than you. So, if you're the
Speaker 1: highest person on the totem pole, like let's just say
Speaker 1: you're a boss or a manager, making fun of yourself
Speaker 1: is a really safe place to go. But maybe don't
Speaker 1: make fun of people that report into you. Now, if
Speaker 1: you're not the highest status person in the room, it
Speaker 1: can be okay to punch up and make someone higher
Speaker 1: status than you the target of a joke, and doing
Speaker 1: so can actually help you gain status and influence. So
Speaker 1: by deliberately injecting more humor and levity into your work,
Speaker 1: not only will your work become more enjoyable, but you
Speaker 1: will reap some really practical benefits such as enhanced creativity
Speaker 1: and greater cutthrough in your communication. And as John Sherman
Speaker 1: once said, if people are laughing, it means they are
Speaker 1: paying attention. Now, that is it for today. If you
Speaker 1: are looking for some more tips to improve the way
Speaker 1: that you work, I write a short fortnightly newsletter that
Speaker 1: contains three cool things that I've discovered that help me
Speaker 1: work better, ranging from interesting research findings through to gadgets
Speaker 1: and software that I'm really loving. So if you're keen
Speaker 1: for that, you can sign up at Howiwork dot co.
Speaker 1: That's How I Work dot c o. How I Work
Speaker 1: is produced by Inventium with production support from Dead Seat Studios.
Speaker 1: And thank you to Martin Nimba who does the audio
Speaker 1: mix for every episode and makes everything sound awesome. I'll
Speaker 1: see you next time.