Speaker 1: When most people think of business, they think of suits, meetings, agendas,
Speaker 1: and a whole bunch of stuff that's very, very serious.
Speaker 1: But does it have to be this way? Naomi bag
Speaker 1: Donus thinks that there's a room for humor even when
Speaker 1: you're trying to accomplish very serious things. By bringing levity
Speaker 1: into your day to day exchanges, you can more easily
Speaker 1: build bonds with your colleagues, diffuse tension, and help them
Speaker 1: get to know you better, and vice versa. Naomi's found
Speaker 1: that utilizing humor can help boost innovation, foster creativity, and
Speaker 1: boost resilience through hard times. And she should know, because
Speaker 1: Naomi teaches humor as part of a purpose in the
Speaker 1: leadership course at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. Naomi learned
Speaker 1: her tricks of the trade at the Upright Citizens Brigade
Speaker 1: theater and from performing improv at comedy venues throughout the
Speaker 1: United States, and now she coaches top executives in the
Speaker 1: at of comedy. My name is doctor Amantha Imber. I'm
Speaker 1: an organizational psychologist and the founder of Behavioral science Consultancy Inventium,
Speaker 1: And this is how I work A show about how
Speaker 1: to help you do your best work. Humor Seriously, which
Speaker 1: is the book that Naomi co wrote is definitely, hands
Speaker 1: down the funniest business book that I have ever read.
Speaker 1: And that is pretty much how my chat with Naomi started.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I mean, the butter is low. People
Speaker 2: don't start out to read funny business books, but I
Speaker 2: will take it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, please take that as a big compliment. I want
Speaker 1: to know what was your process for making it so funny?
Speaker 1: Oh gosh.
Speaker 2: I don't think anyone has asked us that question. I
Speaker 2: love that question. You know, from the beginning, my co
Speaker 2: author Jennifer Acker, and I knew that writing the book
Speaker 2: was going to be really hard, even though we really
Speaker 2: believe in this content. We believe in the transformative effective
Speaker 2: humor on our behavior in psychology. We believe it's a
Speaker 2: completely underleveraged asset at work, that our workplaces are particularly humorless,
Speaker 2: and we believe it's a learnable skill. So we know
Speaker 2: that these small shifts in behavior and mindset are really
Speaker 2: all it takes to reap the benefits. And yet Jennifer
Speaker 2: had written a book before, and she had told me
Speaker 2: it's really really hard. It's harder than you think. And
Speaker 2: so from the beginning we tried to set up these
Speaker 2: hacks that would remind ourselves not to take the work
Speaker 2: or ourselves too seriously along the way. So, as one example,
Speaker 2: writing the first words of a book is really intimidating,
Speaker 2: and so instead of creating a document with a manuscript
Speaker 2: title and all of this stuff, we've just created a document,
Speaker 2: a Google doc actually called words on a page. And
Speaker 2: the was just to lower the bar. It's like, we're
Speaker 2: not writing a book, We're just putting some words on
Speaker 2: a page. That's all we're here to do. And so,
Speaker 2: and another example is when it was time to write
Speaker 2: a proposal again, something that could seem really intimidating, we
Speaker 2: started a Google doc and we titled it a really
Speaker 2: Shitty Proposal, And so every time we opened this dock,
Speaker 2: it would say a really shitty proposal, and it'd be like,
Speaker 2: you know, I'd text her at six am and be like, Hey,
Speaker 2: I'm in the shitty proposal right now. I'll see you
Speaker 2: there later today. And it's so funny. That stuck. So
Speaker 2: we ended up kind of mistakenly turning it in at
Speaker 2: one point to a publisher that way, and they loved
Speaker 2: it so much that we ended up pitching it to
Speaker 2: all the publishers as a really shitty proposal human sitiously
Speaker 2: a really shitty proposal. And so we knew at the
Speaker 2: beginning that there were parts of this that we're going
Speaker 2: to be really hard and we're going to be a
Speaker 2: slog and so it was our way of creating these
Speaker 2: hacks and reminders to ourselves to have a sense of
Speaker 2: levity and really to practice what we preach as we're.
Speaker 1: Doing something I was wondering when I was reading it,
Speaker 1: and I feel like I experienced this in my own writing,
Speaker 1: Like I get the importance of humors, so when I
Speaker 1: read the book, definitely preaching to the converted, but there
Speaker 1: were so many practical strategies that I felt like I
Speaker 1: could use to make myself more funny and the things
Speaker 1: that I was producing more funny. But I was wondering
Speaker 1: with the book, was it almost like you do a
Speaker 1: straight draft that there's no pressure to be funny, and
Speaker 1: then you go back over and then you make it funny.
Speaker 1: Because I feel like that's a process I'll sometimes use
Speaker 1: with my work, particularly if I'm staring at a blank page,
Speaker 1: I'll just go just get some crap on a page
Speaker 1: and then fix it up and then you can make
Speaker 1: it funny if you want later on, or are you
Speaker 1: just naturally funny when you're right?
Speaker 2: That's so that's such an interesting question both. So one
Speaker 2: of the things that was really important Jennifer and I
Speaker 2: would work in silo and then we'd share our work
Speaker 2: with each other. And so one thing that I found
Speaker 2: really helpful is rather than thinking about trying to be funny,
Speaker 2: I just thought about what's going to make Jennifer laugh.
Speaker 2: So what I would do is I would write a
Speaker 2: draft of something, and I would pass it to Jennifer,
Speaker 2: and then we created this process that we called pink fontification,
Speaker 2: which is the lamest title for everything, but we just
Speaker 2: use it within ourselves and of course now the world knows.
Speaker 2: And Jennifer, so what she would do is she would
Speaker 2: read over my work and then she would turn to
Speaker 2: pink anything that made her smile or laugh. And so
Speaker 2: it was sort of this instant gratification and also real
Speaker 2: time feedback of what's working what's not working. And we
Speaker 2: find oftentimes with our students when they're having trouble quote
Speaker 2: being funny or thinking of, you know, some type of humor,
Speaker 2: it's like, okay, forget that, don't try to be funny.
Speaker 2: Just try to write something that would make your best
Speaker 2: friend smile or something that would, you know, make your
Speaker 2: partner laugh a little bit. And so making it personal
Speaker 2: helped a lot. And then there were certainly times where
Speaker 2: we just had to get a framework out, Like I
Speaker 2: remember we were working on this one frame work about
Speaker 2: the misperceptions of failure in humor, where we think that
Speaker 2: failure looks like one thing, and in fact we get
Speaker 2: failure wrong. And we have, of course a two by
Speaker 2: two because we teach it at business school, and I
Speaker 2: remember as soon as we locked in on that, it
Speaker 2: was like, oh my gosh, we got to get this
Speaker 2: content down. And so we just start pouring content out
Speaker 2: around that, and then later on we'll go through and
Speaker 2: we'll look for humor. The other thing that we did was,
Speaker 2: and this is I've spent a good amount of time
Speaker 2: training at the Upright Citizens' Brigade Theater in Los Angeles
Speaker 2: and doing not just improv comedy but sketch comedy there.
Speaker 2: And one thing that I learned from that experience of
Speaker 2: being in a writer's room is you don't always have
Speaker 2: to have the right joke. You just have to have
Speaker 2: the intuition that there's an opportunity for humor here. And
Speaker 2: so I might read a paragraph that I had written,
Speaker 2: or that Jennifer had written, and I might find a
Speaker 2: moment in that where I think it's a little bit humorous,
Speaker 2: but I don't quite know what to say, And then
Speaker 2: I'll just flag it and say pitch alts, which is
Speaker 2: my code for Jennifer, of like pitch ideas for what
Speaker 2: might be funny here. So I'll give one example. In
Speaker 2: Jennifer's intro, she had written something like, I'm a behavioral scientist,
Speaker 2: focused on how meaning and purpose shape the choices that
Speaker 2: individuals make. I didn't view humor as important in my career.
Speaker 2: Sure I liked laughter, but I never viewed humor as
Speaker 2: an important skill to develop. And so when I was
Speaker 2: reading through that, I highlighted the line, sure I like laughter,
Speaker 2: because I was like, this is kind of a funny
Speaker 2: thing to say, Like I like to laugh is kind
Speaker 2: of there's something funny there. And then when she went
Speaker 2: back over it, she wrote, it's sure I like to laugh,
Speaker 2: and then she added a parenthesis, which is impossible to
Speaker 2: say without sounding like a sociopath. But I never viewed
Speaker 2: humor as and important skill developed. And so it was
Speaker 2: this iterative process of I don't need to have the
Speaker 2: right answer, I can just flag that something might be
Speaker 2: an opportunity for humor, and then we can go back
Speaker 2: and forth and build on each other's ideas like that.
Speaker 1: So that's probably a good segue to get into how
Speaker 1: do you write a joke? And I love how practical
Speaker 1: human seriously is in this regard, and are you able
Speaker 1: to take listeners through how you write a joke? And
Speaker 1: like how you personally applying the strategies in the book.
Speaker 2: So there are some really basic principles of comedy that
Speaker 2: I have found really accessible. And I should back up
Speaker 2: for a second and say that we're sort of going
Speaker 2: at this backwards, because the thing that we say to
Speaker 2: our students first and foremost is this is not about
Speaker 2: being funny. It's not about telling jokes, it's not about
Speaker 2: writing jokes. It's about fundamentally shifting our mindset so that
Speaker 2: we're navigating our lives on the precipice of a smile.
Speaker 2: And we use this analogy in the book of the
Speaker 2: difference between levity, humor, and comedy is similar to the
Speaker 2: relationship between movement, exercise and sports. So if you think
Speaker 2: of those things like a pyramid, you've got on the
Speaker 2: base floor levity and movement. These are just the way
Speaker 2: that we navigate our world. So, whether it's our mindset
Speaker 2: or whether it's our physicality, we know that small shifts
Speaker 2: in our you know, whether we're our shoulders are back
Speaker 2: or whether our shoulders are hunched, are going to change
Speaker 2: how people interact with us and how we feel. And similarly,
Speaker 2: if we navigate our lives on the precipice of a
Speaker 2: smile versus the precipice of a frown, it's going to
Speaker 2: change everything. So that first level of levity is really
Speaker 2: what we're going for now. The reason that we spend
Speaker 2: an entire chapter and more focused on comedy, focused on
Speaker 2: the craft and the art of comedy, is that comedy
Speaker 2: is like a sport. There are rules that you follow,
Speaker 2: there are moves that you make to get the outcomes
Speaker 2: you want, in this case laughter, and so our goal
Speaker 2: there is to teach a few of these moves so
Speaker 2: that you can just feel more comfortable getting off the couch.
Speaker 2: Like right, we're not playing sports. We just want to
Speaker 2: know what those moves are so that it comes more
Speaker 2: naturally to us so that we can craft our humor
Speaker 2: in a way that other people will find funny. So
Speaker 2: that's a long digression to say, we're going to talk
Speaker 2: about comedy for a few minutes. But if you are
Speaker 2: not a person who's inclined to comedy, Amantha, I know
Speaker 2: that you are, which is awesome. But for those who
Speaker 2: are listening who are not, there's so much more here
Speaker 2: that's actually important outside of of that just that comedy element. Okay,
Speaker 2: So that being said, let's see a comedy.
Speaker 1: One oh one.
Speaker 2: So the two principles I love to share first are
Speaker 2: number one, at the heart of comedy is truth and
Speaker 2: number two, misdirection is key to getting laughs. So think
Speaker 2: about truth. You often laugh because you think, oh, I
Speaker 2: do that or I've seen people do that, Right, there's
Speaker 2: a recognition that comes that often makes us laugh. And
Speaker 2: then misdirection occurs when we think someone will zig and
Speaker 2: instead they ostriche right, exactly, Okay, So we think they'll
Speaker 2: go one way and they go the other way. And
Speaker 2: so one really simple example I give my students is
Speaker 2: imagine that you are at a dinner party. Remember dinner parties,
Speaker 2: by the so such quaint times. So you're at this
Speaker 2: dinner party and you're halfway through the second course and
Speaker 2: one of your friends walks in late and she says, sorry,
Speaker 2: I'm late, I didn't want to come. Now, this is
Speaker 2: potentially you know. She says it with a smile. You're like, okay,
Speaker 2: that's that's pretty funny. Now the truth here. Sorry I'm late,
Speaker 2: I didn't want to come. The truth is obvious. We've
Speaker 2: all felt this way where we don't really want to
Speaker 2: get off the couch. The misdirection is in, Actually, Amantha,
Speaker 2: where do you think the misdirection is in that sorry
Speaker 2: I'm late, I didn't want to come.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess it's in the I didn't want to come,
Speaker 1: because everybody expects you to say the truth in that scenario.
Speaker 2: Exactly right, So we expect a finlely veiled excuse. Sorry
Speaker 2: i'm late. Traffic was horrible. Sorry i'm late. The link
Speaker 2: didn't work. Sorry I'm late. It's twenty twenty one, We're
Speaker 2: a full year into a pandemic. Just lateness even matter anymore.
Speaker 2: So what this means is two things. Number One, comedy
Speaker 2: isn't about making things up. It's really about being at
Speaker 2: about finding truth in our lives. And this is The
Speaker 2: most important misperception we find with our students and executives
Speaker 2: is they'll come to us. You know, an executive will
Speaker 2: come to me and say, hey, I'm giving a talk.
Speaker 2: I want to be funny. What joke should I tell?
Speaker 2: And I'll say fantastic. I'll push the papers to the side,
Speaker 2: and I'll say, tell me about yourself. What is true
Speaker 2: for you? What do you like more than other people?
Speaker 2: What do you dislike more than other people? What areas
Speaker 2: of contrast or incongruity exist in your life? And we'll
Speaker 2: do this sort of genuine truth finding where we're mining
Speaker 2: their lives for authentic material that they can then turn
Speaker 2: into humor. And then the second thing that this tells
Speaker 2: us is that structure matters. A set of an idea
Speaker 2: often isn't enough. It needs to be encased in a
Speaker 2: way that leads us in a different direction. So that's
Speaker 2: why in the book we go through these techniques from comedians,
Speaker 2: first mining your life for observations, and then second applying
Speaker 2: a couple really easy frameworks. So I'll give I'll fly
Speaker 2: through that sort of process that I would go through.
Speaker 2: So first I'm going to make mundane observations about my
Speaker 2: life right, it's not about inventing something from thin air.
Speaker 2: It's just about noticing what's true. So I might say,
Speaker 2: I might tell you that my dog is incredibly excited
Speaker 2: at dinner time even though he's eating the same food
Speaker 2: he always eats, or how my kids never listen to me,
Speaker 2: or how I go for a walk every day just
Speaker 2: to change up the day a little bit. So I
Speaker 2: have these observations. They're not funny, but they're just true.
Speaker 2: And then you can apply one or more of the
Speaker 2: techniques that we go over in the book, and the
Speaker 2: three most common ones are exaggeration, contrast, and rule of three.
Speaker 2: So I'll use exaggeration contrast. For example, So Larry David said,
Speaker 2: I had a wonderful childhood, which is tough because it's
Speaker 2: hard to adjust to a miserable adulthood. Right, So all
Speaker 2: he's doing here is he's creating contrast between how he
Speaker 2: felt about his childhood and how he feels about his adulthood.
Speaker 2: And then also use it exaggeration because he probably doesn't
Speaker 2: have a totally miserable adulthood, but you know, he's trying
Speaker 2: to create that. And then the other technique that people
Speaker 2: find really easy is rule of three. So this is
Speaker 2: where you make a really simple list where the first
Speaker 2: two elements lead people in one direction and then the
Speaker 2: third reveals something unexpected. So I might say I miss
Speaker 2: so many things about in person office life. You know,
Speaker 2: I miss the support of eye contact, I miss spontaneous
Speaker 2: lunches with colleagues, and I miss wearing pants. Right, so
Speaker 2: you're sort of going ab and apple. So these are
Speaker 2: again these they seem like really simple hacks, but once
Speaker 2: you start noticing the frameworks, you'll start seeing them everywhere
Speaker 2: in comedy, and then they'll start coming more naturally to
Speaker 2: you as you're trying to turn your humor into something
Speaker 2: that feels funny.
Speaker 1: And what about collbex Because I feel like people knowing
Speaker 1: about colbecks might think that's an opportunity for me to
Speaker 1: be funny, even if I, you know, don't feel confident
Speaker 1: constructing a whole joke. So can you talk about callbacks?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's such a great one, so that the callback
Speaker 2: is the safest joke to make. And this is where
Speaker 2: you just make a reference to a moment that already
Speaker 2: got a laugh. So, as one example, I was in
Speaker 2: a zoom call the other day and it was a
Speaker 2: group of CFOs and retired CFOs, and they were all
Speaker 2: going around the table introducing themselves and if you came
Speaker 2: clear that it was sort of a ridiculous thing to
Speaker 2: continue introducing themselves as CFOs because everyone was a CFO.
Speaker 2: And so, you know, one person says, I'm a CFO,
Speaker 2: the other person says, I'm retired CFO. The next person
Speaker 2: says I'm a CFO. And then one woman introduces herself
Speaker 2: and says I'm a recovering CFO, indicating that she's like
Speaker 2: recovering from it rather than retired from it. You know,
Speaker 2: the whole call laughs. Everyone has this shared experience. A
Speaker 2: couple people later, another woman says I'm also a recovering CFO.
Speaker 2: Again everyone laughs, and it's sort of this callback that
Speaker 2: makes the first person feel good. A little bit later,
Speaker 2: a third person says, I'm an aspiring recovering CFO. Right,
Speaker 2: So this is now taking that callback and it's building
Speaker 2: upon it, and again everyone laughs. So it's really low
Speaker 2: risk because it's just making reference to something that already
Speaker 2: got to laugh. It makes the first joke teller feel
Speaker 2: valued and seen, So it's incredible relationship builder in that way,
Speaker 2: and in a group of people. It can be a
Speaker 2: powerful tactic to create an in group, and create an
Speaker 2: in group in a way that's that's powerful and safe
Speaker 2: and good for the culture, rather than one that feels exclusive.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about bringing humor into the every
Speaker 1: day so things that people do every day, like emails
Speaker 1: and meetings and instant messages, and maybe human is not
Speaker 1: quite the right word, because I know in the book
Speaker 1: you talk a lot about levity, which I feel is
Speaker 1: a really underused word. I love the idea of just
Speaker 1: bringing more levity into the workplace. So let's maybe start
Speaker 1: with emails, because I'm sure that listeners of the show
Speaker 1: are probably sending hundreds of emails every week, and I
Speaker 1: feel that there's a lot of missed opportunity there for levity.
Speaker 1: So can you talk about how you think about your
Speaker 1: emails and having received emails from you, I mean, you
Speaker 1: completely practice what you preach. Because we had to reschedule
Speaker 1: this interview because you were sick, and you wrote me
Speaker 1: a hilarious email telling me that you were sick, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, ah, that's so funny. I don't mind rescheduling.
Speaker 1: That's totally cool because you're so funny. But tell me
Speaker 1: about how do you think about emails.
Speaker 2: Well, first, that's great to hear, and you were very
Speaker 2: gracious about meaning to reschedule. Oh, so thank you for that.
Speaker 2: If we think about the barrage of electronic information we
Speaker 2: get every day, it is pretty profound and humor is
Speaker 2: such a powerful way to create signal from the noise.
Speaker 2: In that way, it's a gift to someone when they
Speaker 2: read their fortieth email, you know, in the last twenty
Speaker 2: minutes and everything has been all business and then you
Speaker 2: have this one email that has a little bit of lightheartedness.
Speaker 2: It's so incredibly powerful. Whether it's a pun in the
Speaker 2: subject line, or whether it's a gift for whether it's
Speaker 2: just an unexpected line, it's such a useful way to
Speaker 2: create an email that someone actually wants to respond to,
Speaker 2: rather than one that they will move past and wait
Speaker 2: to respond to it later. And so a couple of
Speaker 2: techniques that we use. First of all, the first thing
Speaker 2: that we do with our students is we give them
Speaker 2: an audit. So we have different kinds of audits because
Speaker 2: we're a very fun class and we're in a business school.
Speaker 2: But this specific kind of audit is an email audit.
Speaker 2: So what we have them do is they have to
Speaker 2: go into their sent folder right there and then in
Speaker 2: class and they have to read the last ten emails
Speaker 2: that they've sent. And after doing so, we then have
Speaker 2: a competition. We call it a jargon off, and they
Speaker 2: have to find the most sterile business speak, like any
Speaker 2: phrase that could have been written by a robot. You know,
Speaker 2: maybe it's the sign off, or maybe it's attached please find,
Speaker 2: or maybe it's the sign off best or kind regards,
Speaker 2: whatever it is that really could have been written by
Speaker 2: a robot. And then they share it with the class.
Speaker 2: You know, they either drop it in a chat box
Speaker 2: or were in person and al through a dramatic reading
Speaker 2: of it. And it's this illustration with this reminder that
Speaker 2: the more technology mediated our communication becomes, the easier it
Speaker 2: is to lose our sense of humor and our humanity
Speaker 2: along the way, because we subconsciously adapt for our medium,
Speaker 2: and when we're constantly communicating through technology, it's easy to
Speaker 2: sound like a robot. So step one is just right
Speaker 2: like a human, really simple but incredibly effective. The second
Speaker 2: is serendipitous sign offs. So instead of writing best, write
Speaker 2: something that's a callback to something from earlier or something
Speaker 2: that is a little bit unexpected. So as an example,
Speaker 2: I started a three pm call and the person that
Speaker 2: I was talking with talked about how she had had
Speaker 2: three cups of coffee and I said, yeah, I'm on
Speaker 2: my second cup, and we sort of had a laugh
Speaker 2: about it, and so I signed off my email from
Speaker 2: that day yours heavily caffeinated. And then we were on
Speaker 2: another call recently and Jennifer's dog got out while we
Speaker 2: were doing an interview, and so she thinks that she
Speaker 2: goes on mute, and she yells to her husband Andy,
Speaker 2: who let the dog out, which then of course led
Speaker 2: to a wonderful rendition of who let the dogs out?
Speaker 2: And then she signed off that email still wondering who
Speaker 2: let the dogs out? So these are just really lighthearted
Speaker 2: ways to leave a little gift in your sign off.
Speaker 2: So that would be number two. My third tip would
Speaker 2: be make callbacks. So this is what you were mentioning earlier.
Speaker 2: When I'm on a call, especially if it's with a
Speaker 2: new client or a new customer or anyone, even a friend,
Speaker 2: I will look for moments when we organically laugh together,
Speaker 2: like I'm not trying to make jokes, but we're humans,
Speaker 2: and humors of fundamental melody of human conversation. We're going
Speaker 2: to probably have a laugh at some point, especially if
Speaker 2: it's a professional context. I'll jot down that moment when
Speaker 2: they laughed, and then I'll bring it back in the email.
Speaker 2: So it could be something as simple as someone mentions
Speaker 2: on the call I had. I was on the phone
Speaker 2: with someone. We're trying to invite him to come speak
Speaker 2: in our course at Stanford. He mentioned that he is superstitious,
Speaker 2: and so I wrote in the email back to him,
Speaker 2: wonderful chatting today. We're so hoping that you can come.
Speaker 2: We've penciled you in while crossing our fingers, stroking rabbit
Speaker 2: foot keychains and throwing a thousand pennies into wishing wells
Speaker 2: that you can join. Right, So it's making a reference
Speaker 2: to something that he said, but you know, including that
Speaker 2: as a callback and an email. And then the last
Speaker 2: one that I would tell people is it's incredible what
Speaker 2: a well placed meme can do, and you don't want
Speaker 2: to overuse them. But we share a story in the
Speaker 2: book which is actually a secretly a story have a
Speaker 2: personal experience, which is that I was working with a
Speaker 2: client and I had done work for them, and then
Speaker 2: I got totally ghosted where they weren't paying me for
Speaker 2: the work I had done, and I sent a couple
Speaker 2: follow up notes. The woman who I was working with
Speaker 2: was actually a former colleague of mine, and so the
Speaker 2: invoice had now gone and paid for months, and so
Speaker 2: I followed up, you know, Hey, so sorry, but any
Speaker 2: updates on the invoice. No response. Two weeks later, Hey
Speaker 2: just wanted to follow up. Is there anything else that
Speaker 2: you need from this order to have this invoice go through?
Speaker 2: Nothing in a month later, checking in on this again,
Speaker 2: is there anything I can do to help push this forward?
Speaker 2: No response, And so finally a month later I tried
Speaker 2: a different strategy, which is I sent a cat meme,
Speaker 2: and this cat meme was a cat looking longingly through
Speaker 2: a glass outside that said hello from the other side.
Speaker 2: I must have me owed a thousand times and it's
Speaker 2: like from the Adell lyric. And she got back to
Speaker 2: me the next day and I was paid with him
Speaker 2: the week. So I guess the last tip that I
Speaker 2: would give is think about showing, not telling, especially if
Speaker 2: you aren't super comfortable making humor yourself. Just include something
Speaker 2: lighthearted that you think would make the other person smile.
Speaker 1: Do you find now, particularly because you've written this book
Speaker 1: about humor. I mean, with most of your emails, do
Speaker 1: you feel like I have to be funny? Are you
Speaker 1: sending any straight emails?
Speaker 2: And Naomi, Oh, that's such a great question. Gosh, I
Speaker 2: guess I have to do an email audit on myself.
Speaker 2: You know, I would say we've created a culture of lightheartedness,
Speaker 2: but there's a point where that can go too far.
Speaker 2: Too If you're over extending your energy on trying to
Speaker 2: be funny, on trying to make things lighthearted, then of
Speaker 2: course that's going to be detrimental to your goal. And
Speaker 2: so what I do try and do is be unapologetically
Speaker 2: and relentlessly human in my emails. So I try and
Speaker 2: write my emails as if I'm talking, and if I
Speaker 2: feel excited about something, I'm going to totally show that
Speaker 2: in my email. If I can think of something that
Speaker 2: I think would make the other person smile, then I'm
Speaker 2: going to include that in my email. I was talking
Speaker 2: with a colleague of mind, this incredible woman who teaches
Speaker 2: at Harvard and has done a lot of this research.
Speaker 2: Alison Woodbrooks, along with Brad Bitterley and Murray Schweitzer, has
Speaker 2: done incredible research in this area of humor and status,
Speaker 2: and in particular for Alison, around human conversations, how do
Speaker 2: we create more effective conversations with people? And I was
Speaker 2: talking with Alison. We've worked together for the last seven
Speaker 2: years now. She was one of the researchers at the
Speaker 2: Second City Humor Retreat where we were hosted by Anne
Speaker 2: Libra and Kelly Leonard to do a deep dive into
Speaker 2: humor with the heads of the Second City and the
Speaker 2: founder of the Onion and these behavioral scientists from all
Speaker 2: over the world. And I was talking to Alison this
Speaker 2: morning because I guest spoke in her class, and she
Speaker 2: was saying, I think I may over index in like
Speaker 2: none of my emails are serious. All of my emails
Speaker 2: have some levity. And she reflected from and she said,
Speaker 2: but you know what, if I'm going to over index
Speaker 2: in one direction of the or the other, I would
Speaker 2: so much rather have more levity and more joy in
Speaker 2: my life than have all of my professional communications be boring.
Speaker 2: And what I've noticed with Alison, the way that she
Speaker 2: communicates with her students is she creates an environment where
Speaker 2: everyone feels safe to show their own sense of humor
Speaker 2: and We see this in organizations too, that when the
Speaker 2: leader is willing to have more levity and humor and
Speaker 2: show more of themselves, then everyone feels safer and more
Speaker 2: empowered to show more of themselves as well.
Speaker 1: How about in matings, where are the opportunities for bringing
Speaker 1: more levity into matings? I'm curious as to how you
Speaker 1: think about this in your own life for matings that
Speaker 1: you're attending or facilitating.
Speaker 2: Never is the answer.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting when we all moved to zoom,
Speaker 2: or when we all move to working remotely, it fell
Speaker 2: for a while, like we fell off this humor cliff,
Speaker 2: and now you're seeing this incredible rebirth of humor in
Speaker 2: a new format. So for me, for example, I mentioned
Speaker 2: that I have my students do the humor audit. Well,
Speaker 2: the way that I've started doing that, and I did
Speaker 2: that this morning with the students at Harvard is instead
Speaker 2: of saying, okay, everyone go into your email, you know
Speaker 2: you have to do this now, I play an alarm sound,
Speaker 2: so everyone thinks that there's like a fire alarm going
Speaker 2: off in my house. And I interrupt myself mid sentence
Speaker 2: as I'm lecturing and I'm looking around, I'm like, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, Oh my gosh, you know what this means.
Speaker 2: It's time for the audit. You're all being audited. Everyone's
Speaker 2: sort of looking around confused, and I go, oky, everyone
Speaker 2: reach under your chairs, like taped under your chair is
Speaker 2: going to be an envelope, And of course everyone sort
Speaker 2: of looks around at each other. A few people actually
Speaker 2: go and reach down there. And then I show a
Speaker 2: slide with an envelope open that says you're being audited.
Speaker 2: And so it's so well, it's so lighthearted, but they're
Speaker 2: just these small ways in which you're signaling that we're
Speaker 2: not taking ourselves to do seriously. So a couple other
Speaker 2: examples that I have heard recently. So I work with
Speaker 2: a woman at Salesforce, and she's a senior exec. She
Speaker 2: was in a meeting and one of her and her
Speaker 2: five year old walked into the meeting accidentally, and everyone
Speaker 2: sort of laughed about it, and the five year old left.
Speaker 2: So what she did was she noticed that in these
Speaker 2: meetings she's always repeating the same phrases, whether it's let's
Speaker 2: talk about next steps or let's find time on the
Speaker 2: calendar right now, or whatever it is. And so she
Speaker 2: had her five year old create signs, like create signs
Speaker 2: on paddles that she could hold up during meetings, and
Speaker 2: they're adorable. They're like written with krans and they say
Speaker 2: things like what are the next steps? And I think
Speaker 2: you're on mute was my favorite one. I think you're
Speaker 2: on mutant paddle that she holds up, and so it's
Speaker 2: a way for her to say the things that she's
Speaker 2: going to say anyways, but do it in sort of
Speaker 2: a lighthearted way. So there are lots of examples. I
Speaker 2: think the important thing is it needs to be authentic
Speaker 2: to whoever the person is, and it also needs to
Speaker 2: be appropriate to their status. And so in the book
Speaker 2: and in our teaching, we share that there are these
Speaker 2: four humor styles, and everyone can go to humor seriously
Speaker 2: dot com and take a quiz to find out what
Speaker 2: your style is. But in short, those styles are the
Speaker 2: stand up, the sweetheart, the sniper, and the magnet. And
Speaker 2: what we find is that different styles are going to
Speaker 2: work in different contexts and in particular based on your status.
Speaker 2: So I can do that, I can do that sort
Speaker 2: of silly. There's an envelope taped dont your desk and
Speaker 2: do all of that because in that context, I have authority.
Speaker 2: I am a high status person in the room because
Speaker 2: I'm the teacher. Now, when i am lee workshops for
Speaker 2: groups of executives, by the way, that's magnet humor. That's
Speaker 2: like very typical magnet humor. When I'm leading workshops for
Speaker 2: groups of executives, I'll lean more into sniper and stand
Speaker 2: up style humor, which is more biting. I'm not afraid
Speaker 2: to ruffle a few feathers to get a laugh a
Speaker 2: little more targeted. And the reason for this is I'm
Speaker 2: no longer quote, the most senior person in the room,
Speaker 2: and so there's this ruling comedy that you never want
Speaker 2: to punch down, which means you never want to make
Speaker 2: the target of your joke someone of lower status than you.
Speaker 2: So what that means is when I am the highest
Speaker 2: person on the totem pole, or I'm in a position
Speaker 2: of authority, making fun of myself is a really safe
Speaker 2: place to go. When I'm not the highest status person
Speaker 2: in the room, I can punch up and that can
Speaker 2: actually gain me status and influence.
Speaker 1: That's so helpeful to think about. And on the topic
Speaker 1: of presenting, because you would do so much presenting and
Speaker 1: I imagine knot spaking is part of your work. How
Speaker 1: do you think about the first few minutes the presentation?
Speaker 2: Setting the tone is incredibly important because it cures people
Speaker 2: that you are going to have some humor in levity.
Speaker 2: So if I am serious, if I'm really serious the
Speaker 2: first two to three minutes, then oftentimes my humor won't
Speaker 2: land later on because people aren't expecting it. But if
Speaker 2: they code me as someone who's intellectually agile in that way,
Speaker 2: because by the way people do code humor as being
Speaker 2: associated with intelligence and agility, if I signal that early,
Speaker 2: then my jokes are going to land better later. And
Speaker 2: so the thing I always do, if possible, is I
Speaker 2: will make a callback reference to something that the earlier
Speaker 2: presenter has said, or I will name something that's happening
Speaker 2: in the moment. So at conferences, for example, I have
Speaker 2: a placeholder in my first thirty seconds where all I'm
Speaker 2: going to do is I'm going to make a reference
Speaker 2: to the last presenter who had a humorous line. If
Speaker 2: I don't find that, if you know, they don't laugh
Speaker 2: the entire time that the presenter is going, then instead
Speaker 2: what I'm doing in the one minute before I go
Speaker 2: on stage, or in the one minute before I start
Speaker 2: talking on zoom is I'm just noticing what's going on
Speaker 2: for people. So I'm looking at people's zoom backgrounds, or
Speaker 2: if I'm in person, I'm looking at the venue. I'm
Speaker 2: sort of making note of something that's happening in the room.
Speaker 2: And So I was on a call yesterday and I
Speaker 2: was presenting, and the introduction was quite dry. There was
Speaker 2: not a moment of humor that happened, and so I
Speaker 2: started scrolling through all of the pictures of people on
Speaker 2: zoom and I came on and I said, thank you
Speaker 2: so much for having me. I just want to start
Speaker 2: by saying that this is an incredibly impressive crowd. I'm
Speaker 2: really grateful to be here. And in addition to your
Speaker 2: professional accomplishments, I want to start by giving out a
Speaker 2: couple of awards for your backgrounds, because these are some
Speaker 2: of the best backgrounds I've seen. And so I give
Speaker 2: an award for best plant life, which is like a
Speaker 2: woman who's sitting there with like literally in a jung
Speaker 2: And then I give an award for I forget what
Speaker 2: the other ones where I think someone had pictures of
Speaker 2: their kids. And I gave an award for that, and
Speaker 2: then my third award was someone who was in like
Speaker 2: a virtual background on the moon, and I thanked them
Speaker 2: for joining another ingenuity and getting their Internet connections set
Speaker 2: up on the moon. And so you know what that
Speaker 2: does is it takes people right in the moment. I
Speaker 2: couldn't have planned that out, just like I couldn't have
Speaker 2: planned out the callback, and so again it signals intelligence,
Speaker 2: it signals agility, and it also signals Okay, this is
Speaker 2: someone who I've got to stay on my toes for.
Speaker 1: Hey, there, it's time for a little ad break. But
Speaker 1: can I ask a favor of you? If you're enjoying
Speaker 1: how I work, I'd be so grateful if you could
Speaker 1: hit pause and pop into Apple Podcasts or wherever you're
Speaker 1: listening to this from and leave a review. You might
Speaker 1: want to leave, a start writing or maybe a comment.
Speaker 1: And aside from the warm fuzzy feelings that this will
Speaker 1: give both you and me, it helps other people find
Speaker 1: out about how I work. So thank you in advance. Okay,
Speaker 1: Naomi is going to be back after this short break
Speaker 1: and we're going to be learning about some other tricks
Speaker 1: that you can use to be funny in presentations. Especially
Speaker 1: if you're not that confident in your ability to be
Speaker 1: spontaneously funny. What are some other tricks that people can
Speaker 1: use maybe if they're not confident in their ability to
Speaker 1: be spontaneously funny, are there any other tricks that people
Speaker 1: can use in those first few minutes?
Speaker 2: Totally. So, one trick that we see people use as
Speaker 2: bringing up a cope presenter that they naturally can banter with.
Speaker 2: So this obviously isn't always possible, but in instances where
Speaker 2: it is possible, it's a really safe way to showcase
Speaker 2: that you have a sense of humor, that you don't
Speaker 2: take yourself too seriously, but you don't need to be
Speaker 2: the one making jokes. So a couple examples of this.
Speaker 2: Dick Costello, the FORMERCYEU of Twitter. He used to have
Speaker 2: people who were not the most senior in his organization
Speaker 2: come co present with him in all hands meetings. So,
Speaker 2: as one example, April Underwood, who was very senior in
Speaker 2: product at Twitter. Dick and April had a very good relationship.
Speaker 2: He was a mentor to her. They had grown a
Speaker 2: real peer relationship, and April had a real biting sense
Speaker 2: of humor. She would often take him down or she'd
Speaker 2: just bring out Dick's sense of humor, and so he
Speaker 2: would have her co present and in doing so, their
Speaker 2: banter naturally came out. Sergey and Larry at Google did
Speaker 2: this too, where early in there in founding Google and
Speaker 2: then throughout the company's growth, they would have these all
Speaker 2: hands meetings where they would both be on stage and
Speaker 2: they would really showcase their natural banter. So that's one way.
Speaker 2: Another way is simply to share something that you find
Speaker 2: genuinely funny or lighthearted and tie it into a content
Speaker 2: piece that you're already going to present. And this is
Speaker 2: actually a lot easier than you think it. So I'll
Speaker 2: give an example of one thing I use is I
Speaker 2: use this clip from The Californians. So google the SNL
Speaker 2: the Californians and you'll find this clip. There are many
Speaker 2: good clips there, but my favorite one is one where
Speaker 2: Bill Hayder, Kristen Wigg and Fred Armison break character. They
Speaker 2: just they can't. They think it's so funny that they
Speaker 2: break character and they're laughing in the middle of the
Speaker 2: sketch and it always gets people laughing. That the most
Speaker 2: important thing. I look through the zoom screen and it
Speaker 2: just gets people laughing and so I don't have to
Speaker 2: do anything to be funny. I just play this clip,
Speaker 2: and I will make a connection to whatever I'm teaching. So,
Speaker 2: for example, if I'm sharing a study on how when
Speaker 2: people laugh together, they are more likely to share thirty
Speaker 2: percent more personal information in a subsequent conversation, so those
Speaker 2: conversations are rated as thirty percent more intimate and authentic.
Speaker 2: So I'll share that clip and then I'll say, now,
Speaker 2: I want you to imagine that you're walking into a
Speaker 2: room with someone and having a conversation. So I might
Speaker 2: do that. Another way I might do it is just
Speaker 2: show that clip and then say, great, I know that
Speaker 2: we're joining from all over the world today, so I
Speaker 2: just wanted to kick off here with a California vibe
Speaker 2: since I typically do my teaching at Stanford. These are
Speaker 2: totally different reasons that I've given for showing the clip.
Speaker 2: The important thing is just to get people laughing. So
Speaker 2: whatever it is that you find funny, of course that
Speaker 2: is also work appropriate. Try and see if you can
Speaker 2: find a way to lead with that or to include
Speaker 2: it in your presentation and then make a loose tie
Speaker 2: to the content, and people will allow you some leeway
Speaker 2: because you've given them the gift of laughter.
Speaker 1: And how about that the end of a presentation? How
Speaker 1: important is it to incorporate hema right at the end.
Speaker 2: So there's a peak end theory in psychology which shows
Speaker 2: that people, well, first of all, there's privacy effect, there's
Speaker 2: recency effects, and then peak ND So all of these
Speaker 2: things say that different moments are really really important in
Speaker 2: our conversations, in our interactions, and in our relationships, so priming.
Speaker 2: So that's what the initial thing that you do is.
Speaker 2: That's why it's important to start with some element of levity.
Speaker 2: Or it can be powerful to start with some element
Speaker 2: of levity, because then people are primed to look for
Speaker 2: and find other moments, other reasons to laugh. Now, peak
Speaker 2: end theory says that people tend to remember the most
Speaker 2: emotionally heightened moments and also the last moment. And this
Speaker 2: is similar to recency effect with the last moment, that
Speaker 2: people will remember the most recent interaction with someone. And
Speaker 2: so what this means is you want to leave people
Speaker 2: with some little bit of levity or humor. Now I
Speaker 2: don't stick to this really firmly. I think that it's
Speaker 2: more important to end your presentation strong or end what
Speaker 2: you're doing strong rather than necessarily to end with humor.
Speaker 2: And the reason for that is if you have used
Speaker 2: humor along the way, people will remember it. I can
Speaker 2: give it in ample of that in a minute, but
Speaker 2: the important thing is I will never end on Q
Speaker 2: and A. And this is something that I learned from
Speaker 2: David Nihill, who wrote Do You Talk Funny and was
Speaker 2: graciously a guest in our class at Stanford. He wrote
Speaker 2: a fantastic book where he became a stand up comedian
Speaker 2: and deconstructed all of these techniques. I mean, it was
Speaker 2: really incredibly inspiring work in a really good book. And
Speaker 2: one of the things that David taught me is you
Speaker 2: never end on Q and A, because, without fail, you
Speaker 2: have this incredible presentation that you've been prepping, and you
Speaker 2: know exactly what you're going to say, you know all
Speaker 2: your notes to hit, and then you end on Q
Speaker 2: and A and it's sort of like, oh, well, you know,
Speaker 2: it's not something that you necessarily wanted to talk about,
Speaker 2: maybe you don't have a great answer to it. You're
Speaker 2: sort of bumbling your way through it, and that's how
Speaker 2: you end. And so the most effective technique that I
Speaker 2: learned from him was you want to do Q and
Speaker 2: A and then you want to leave a three minute
Speaker 2: content piece at the very end. So say, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm going to take some Q and A now, and
Speaker 2: then I'd love to leave you with a few closing remarks.
Speaker 2: So that's what I would say about ending strong. I
Speaker 2: mean that said, if you can leave with something that's lighthearted,
Speaker 2: that's good too.
Speaker 1: And how about during the presentation, because I remember, really
Speaker 1: early on when I started keynote speaking, I had this
Speaker 1: coach and he would always say, Okay, that's good, but
Speaker 1: be funnier, be funnier, be funnier, like think about laughs
Speaker 1: per minute and so yea, how whenever yeah, yeah. Like
Speaker 1: so now whenever I'm creating a new keynote presentation, I'm
Speaker 1: literally thinking laughs per minute. And then I will look
Speaker 1: over recordings of presentations and I will be thinking, oh gosh,
Speaker 1: that was like a two minute period where I didn't
Speaker 1: say anything funny. They probably fell asleep. I need to
Speaker 1: inject more humor. There is this overkill how are you
Speaker 1: thinking about it for your presentations?
Speaker 2: Like can you be too funny? I love that, So
Speaker 2: it's totally not overkill. And I do the exact same thing.
Speaker 1: Oh, good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So remember I mentioned earlier the Jennifer and I
Speaker 2: had this process, our pink fontification process. So I still
Speaker 2: do that with my own talks. I will go through
Speaker 2: my talk and then at least every like every paragraph
Speaker 2: or every other paragraph, there has to be a moment
Speaker 2: that's lighthearted or has some humor in it, or something
Speaker 2: that's going to make people perk up or ideally laugh.
Speaker 2: And so this is something that I really think about
Speaker 2: a lot. And of course, sometimes we're really stressed and
Speaker 2: we don't have time for this. And I've also loved
Speaker 2: working with some comedians, and I have a team of
Speaker 2: comedy writers that I've gotten to know over the last
Speaker 2: number of years, and we'll have those comedy writers come
Speaker 2: in and coach our students. And sometimes if I'm giving
Speaker 2: a talk and I'm just like this isn't where it
Speaker 2: needs to be, I'll gather three of my favorite comedy
Speaker 2: writers and I'll say, hey, guys, can you jump in
Speaker 2: this document for thirty minutes? Can you just pitch either
Speaker 2: humor or different opportunities for humor or We'll get on
Speaker 2: the phone together and we'll throw it together and will
Speaker 2: do that. And so there's this thought in business, especially
Speaker 2: that we have to have all the right answers, that
Speaker 2: we have to work in a vacuum and then have
Speaker 2: just the right thing to say, and that the reality
Speaker 2: is that's just not how the comedy world works. Anything
Speaker 2: you see on TV, whether it's sketch comedy or a
Speaker 2: sitcom or a Netflix special, every joke that you see
Speaker 2: on TV has been worked over by ten writers in
Speaker 2: a room together who are laughing. And so if you're
Speaker 2: feeling stuck yourself, then grab it doesn't have to be
Speaker 2: comedy writers. It can be grab a couple friends and say, hey,
Speaker 2: can you help me, you know, go through this and
Speaker 2: just flag any opportunities for humor that you see or
Speaker 2: any ways to make this a little bit more lighthearted.
Speaker 1: That reminds me of something Adam Grant talks about where
Speaker 1: he talks about having a challenge network, So a group
Speaker 1: of people who you can send you work at too
Speaker 1: for critique and to make it better, into challenge into
Speaker 1: thinking and like, I think about what you've just said,
Speaker 1: that's kind of like having a human network, like people
Speaker 1: you can draw on to make your stuff funnier. I
Speaker 1: really like that idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think of them as my writer's room. So
Speaker 2: comedy is a team sport. And when I was training
Speaker 2: and performing in LA, I was so used to being
Speaker 2: in a writer's room with people, or being on stage
Speaker 2: with seven other people, and so the idea of creating
Speaker 2: comedy in a vacuum by myself alone was like horrifying.
Speaker 2: And so I would sometimes create a writer's room where
Speaker 2: it's really just my friends I know from comedy, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, hey, can we do a quick writer's room
Speaker 2: this weekend and can I run some stuff by you?
Speaker 2: They're like, yeah, totally, and so yeah, absolutely, having your
Speaker 2: writer's room or having your what did you call.
Speaker 1: It, like a human network?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that having your humor network is incredibly powerful.
Speaker 2: And by the way, Sarah Cooper, So, Sarah Cooper is
Speaker 2: in a fantastic comedian. Of course, she's become more famous
Speaker 2: in the last couple of years, but Sarah Cooper has
Speaker 2: been wildly funny for many, many years. Her books are amazing,
Speaker 2: and she was one of the first guests in our class,
Speaker 2: and I remember her telling our students about how she
Speaker 2: had a set of trusted testers is what she called them,
Speaker 2: and she had a Facebook group that was all her friends, family,
Speaker 2: and colleagues who she trusted, who would give her really
Speaker 2: genuine feedback on her work. And so when she was
Speaker 2: writing her books, first had to look smart in meetings
Speaker 2: and then how to be successful without hurting men's feelings
Speaker 2: were her two books. She would post in her private
Speaker 2: Facebook group, Hey, this is what I'm thinking of writing.
Speaker 2: What do you think about it? And she would get
Speaker 2: really candid feedback about what people thought and whether it
Speaker 2: was going too far, whether it was crossing a line,
Speaker 2: whether it needed to go further. And so this concept
Speaker 2: of not creating comedy in a vacuum, it's just so
Speaker 2: core to everyone who has done comedy in their background,
Speaker 2: and something that we don't necessarily think of in business.
Speaker 1: What do you do when a joke fails? Because I
Speaker 1: guess that's probably one reason why people maybe stay away
Speaker 1: from humor, because of fear of failure. So what do
Speaker 1: you do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's such a great question. So I delineate between
Speaker 2: two important types of failure. So type one of failure
Speaker 2: is you try to make someone laugh and it doesn't
Speaker 2: go well. But it's benign, right, it's totally appropriate. It's
Speaker 2: just you misjudged, You didn't craft your humor. In the
Speaker 2: right way and you just you know, you don't get
Speaker 2: it right. In that case, a powerful technique can actually
Speaker 2: be to double down and acknowledge, just name what happened.
Speaker 2: So you try and make a joke and you say
Speaker 2: either well you know that one didn't land here, or
Speaker 2: thank you all be here all day, or something else,
Speaker 2: to just acknowledge the fact that you just tried to
Speaker 2: make a joke and there was radio silence. Oftentimes just
Speaker 2: doing that will get a laugh. You know, you diffuse tension.
Speaker 2: You allow people to laugh at the fact that that
Speaker 2: didn't go well, and that's a great way to sort
Speaker 2: of move past it. The type two of failure is
Speaker 2: you cross a line, you offend someone, or you make
Speaker 2: someone feel bad. And in this case we give a
Speaker 2: framework in our book of recognize, diagnose, and make it right.
Speaker 2: So step one just recognizing the fact that you have failed,
Speaker 2: which weirdly gets hard when you rise in status, because
Speaker 2: we know that the more status and power you gain,
Speaker 2: the harder it is to stay calibrated because people will laugh,
Speaker 2: not necessarily because you're funny, but because you are the boss.
Speaker 2: So one of my favorite illustrations of this, by the way,
Speaker 2: was a group of social psychologists ran this study where
Speaker 2: they had a research assistant. It was actually an interview simulation,
Speaker 2: but the people walking in the room didn't know that
Speaker 2: this person in the simulation was a research assistant. They
Speaker 2: thought that it was just another person. And so in
Speaker 2: one situation, they made the participants believe that this person
Speaker 2: was high status, that they were an important person, a
Speaker 2: powerful person. And in the other group, they made the
Speaker 2: participants believe that this person was a subordinate, that they
Speaker 2: were lower status than the participants. And so in this study,
Speaker 2: all the research assistants delivered the same joke, and that
Speaker 2: joke was two muffins are baking in an oven. One
Speaker 2: of them yells, wow, it's hot in here, and the
Speaker 2: other muffin replies, holy cow, a talking muffin. Now this
Speaker 2: is objectively a grade A dad joke. I mean, this
Speaker 2: is a bad joke. And what they found was that
Speaker 2: participants in the condition where they thought the joke teller
Speaker 2: was low status crickets absolutely no laughter. People in the
Speaker 2: high status condition, people who thought that the joke teller
Speaker 2: was high status like roaring laughter. Right, And anyways, this
Speaker 2: research is really interesting. It doesn't even matter if the
Speaker 2: person's in the room. If they watch a video of
Speaker 2: someone high status, they're more likely to laugh. And so
Speaker 2: what this means is that we think like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I have to recognize when I fail, but it actually
Speaker 2: can be harder than we think. And so especially if
Speaker 2: we fail in ways where we think we could have
Speaker 2: crossed a line where there's an appropriateness issue, you have
Speaker 2: to get really good at recognizing that. And by the way,
Speaker 2: that was Seth Meyers's number one piece of advice for
Speaker 2: our students. So Seth Meyer's former head writer of Saturday
Speaker 2: Night Live and he has his own show, Late Night
Speaker 2: with Seth Myers. He joined as a guest in our
Speaker 2: class and we were wrapping up and we said, great, Seth,
Speaker 2: what's the one thing you want to leave our students
Speaker 2: with And he paused, and he said, get really good
Speaker 2: at recognizing your own fake laughter, the laughter that you
Speaker 2: make that isn't genuine. Because once you get good at that,
Speaker 2: then you'll start noticing other people's fake laughter, and that
Speaker 2: gets really important as you get hire in status. So
Speaker 2: we always tell our students if you do fail, recognize it,
Speaker 2: apologize and make it right immediately, genuine apology, and really
Speaker 2: try and understand why your humor failed, So ask the
Speaker 2: person what did I miss? What went wrong? When our
Speaker 2: humor fails, it's really easy to lean on, oh, well,
Speaker 2: you know, they probably didn't get the joke or it's
Speaker 2: their problem, rather than saying, actually, I may have done
Speaker 2: something wrong here. And then third is so recognized, diagnose,
Speaker 2: make it right. And then we always tell our students
Speaker 2: that there are these common reasons why humor fails that
Speaker 2: you want to try and avoid. So, for example, never
Speaker 2: punch down. We've talked about that before. Number two minding
Speaker 2: your medium. So a really quick tip here is sarcasm
Speaker 2: is the most wrongly interpreted form of humor in writing,
Speaker 2: so people think that they're much better than they actually
Speaker 2: are at conveying sarcasm. Another one context switching. So it
Speaker 2: goes without saying that humor's context dependent, that something that
Speaker 2: lands in the living room won't necessarily land in the boardroom.
Speaker 2: And yet it can be really tempting if we're sitting
Speaker 2: around our colleagues and we think of something funny to
Speaker 2: just sort of let it come out. So we have
Speaker 2: to be really aware of context switching. And then the
Speaker 2: other thing that we dive into more fully is those
Speaker 2: personal humor pitfalls based on your humor style. So each
Speaker 2: of those styles you know, for example, the magnet and
Speaker 2: the sweetheart, they're more likely to over index on self
Speaker 2: deprecation and so they can actually take away their power
Speaker 2: when they do that. On the other side, you have
Speaker 2: stand ups and snipers who can alienate or offend with
Speaker 2: their humor. So really getting to know what's your humor
Speaker 2: style and therefore what are your personal pitfalls can help
Speaker 2: you avoid those humor fails.
Speaker 1: And I'll put a link to that in the show
Speaker 1: note so that people cannose the personal humus style. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean my final question if people want to consume
Speaker 1: more of what you're doing and get the hands on
Speaker 1: a copy of Humors Seriously, which seriously people need to do.
Speaker 1: It's just brilliant how and people do all that.
Speaker 2: The book is available anywhere books are sold, but come
Speaker 2: on to Humor Seriously dot com and you can find
Speaker 2: links to our book. And then we also have a
Speaker 2: twenty one day humor boot camp that is SMS space,
Speaker 2: so you'd get text messages to your phone more to
Speaker 2: WhatsApp whenever your preferred method is. That's a twenty one
Speaker 2: day program where every day you get a little audio message.
Speaker 2: Some activities you interact with the program in a way,
Speaker 2: and the goal is really to have us make behavior
Speaker 2: change right that they are these small changes that we
Speaker 2: can make in our day to day that will have
Speaker 2: monumental impact on the thing that's most important, which is
Speaker 2: are we navigating our lives on the precipice of a smile?
Speaker 1: Oh Aso Naimi. I'm devastated that we've run out of
Speaker 1: time because I've just loved chatting to you. This is
Speaker 1: like a highlight of my week, if not month. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for all the demising stuff that you've imparted,
Speaker 1: and I wish I didn't have to let you get
Speaker 1: on with your day, but I think.
Speaker 2: I well, thank you so much for having me. And
Speaker 2: I have to give you props that your email to
Speaker 2: us to ask us to join you on the podcast.
Speaker 2: In it you signed off with and keeping everything cross
Speaker 2: that you'll say yes. And I remember reading that and
Speaker 2: reading what you had said about the book and thinking, Okay,
Speaker 2: Amantha gats this and I really can't wait for this conversation.
Speaker 2: So I've been looking forward to this one for a
Speaker 2: long time. And thank you so much for having me
Speaker 2: and for the work that you do.
Speaker 1: That is it for today's show. If you have not
Speaker 1: hit subscribe to How I Work, you might want to
Speaker 1: go and quickly do that because you will be alerted
Speaker 1: when new episodes drop, such as the one that I
Speaker 1: Have Next week, which is with comedian and ABC Breakfast
Speaker 1: radio presenter Sammy Jay will be continuing on the human
Speaker 1: theme and learning about how can you be funny on
Speaker 1: cue when your job is to literally be funny every
Speaker 1: single day. How I Work is produced by Inventingum with
Speaker 1: production support from dead Set Studios. The producer for this
Speaker 1: episode was the marvelous Jenna Koda, and thank you to
Speaker 1: Martin Nimber who did the audio mix and makes everything
Speaker 1: sound better than it would have otherwise. See you next time.