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Positive
humour is beneficial in the workplace for many reasons. From job
interviews to daily interactions, using humour can enhance career
success, reports Sinara Stull O’Donnell
In
addition to a great resume and superior references, you might want
to pack a little humour along on your next interview. From first
impressions to the so-called daily grind, professionals are finding
that the use of humour can perform workplace wonders. It may aid
communication, establish empathy, diffuse tough situations and even
build the bottom line.
Studies
show that humour may increase productivity on the job. Research
by Lee Berk, a medical researcher in humour and laughter, shows
that good-natured or mirthful laughter can: Increase the immune
system’s activity; decrease stress hormones which constrict
blood vessels and suppress immune activity; and increase the antibody
immunoglobulin A, which protects the upper-respiratory tract.
“Who
wouldn’t want that kind of benefit?” says Dr Berk, an
assistant professor of family medicine at the Susan Samueli Centre
for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the University of
California, Irvine. Dr Berk co-authored an extensive study on laughter
with Stanley Tan while with California’s Loma Linda University
School of Medicine.
Their
study shows that if you’re using or experiencing positive humour,
the whole brain is involved, not just one side, and that there’s
more coordination between both sides. “As a result of using
humour, we experience the diminishment of classical stress,”
he says. “When one utilises humour, it makes you less on edge,
lowers your blood pressure and your heart rate and allows you to
think more clearly.” When you experience or use good-natured
humour, “your biology has changed. Your stress hormones have
been lowered and your immune system optimised,” says Dr Berk.
“Using humour and laughter in our work environment counters
all the negative effects of that environment.”
Positive
humour, as opposed to negative or mean-spirited joking, is beneficial
in the workplace for other reasons. From job interviews to daily
interactions, using humour can enhance career success. Here’s
why:
Humour
shows you’re easy to work with
 Job
candidates worry that they won’t seem serious during interviews.
But coming across as easy to work with is important as well, and
humour can aid in this impression. As a hiring manager in the corporate
workplace, Lou Heckler, a professional speaker and humourist in
Gainesville says he was often asked if candidates he interviewed
seemed easy to work with. This quality “is definitely a factor”
in hiring decisions, he says.
Candidates
have plenty of opportunity to show an appropriate sense of humour
during the interview process. For instance, when glitches arise,
such as long waits, postponed meetings or misplaced resumes, the
ability to relax, laugh appropriately and “go with the flow”
will help you to be perceived as flexible.
Naturally,
avoid all sexist, racist, crude and mean-spirited overtones when
using humour. Others’ reactions are the best gauge of whether
humour works, and if there’s a question about whether a remark
is appropriate, it usually isn’t.
Humour
makes you
likable
As
a free-lance advertising copywriter based in Carlsbad, California,
Jill Easton often meets with new clients to pitch business. “You
can walk into a business situation with the best plans, the most
professional presentations,” she says. “The decision about
whether to hire you boils down to whether they like you or not.”
Easton
learned this early in her career while working in New York as a
junior copywriter. The agency sent her to Dallas to make a presentation
to a beverage company. The storyboard — a visual depiction
of the ad campaign — showed musical lyrics and dancers in the
ad, which she duly described to the client’s decision-makers.
“We’re
not going to spend $100,000 unless we know what it sounds like,”
one executive responded. So she belted out the song. He then said,
“I’m not going to spend $100,000 unless I know what the
dancing looks like.” “So I danced around in my Evan Picone
suit and did ‘shuffle off to Buffalo’ and the ‘Suzy
Q’ around the conference room,” Easton says. She landed
the account.
Later,
Easton was interviewing for a job in New York when she met an interviewer
who took a dislike to her California background. Finally, Easton
told him in a lighthearted tone: “I’m not blond. I’m
a brunette. I’ve never surfed a day in my life. I won’t
eat tofu or sprouts.” The humour helped break the ice. She
was later offered the job.
Easton
says hilarious behind-the-scenes stories help put other participants
in business meetings at ease. One story describes how, while filming
a commercial at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, she and the crew
on a flatbed truck were charged by two rhinos. Their handlers told
the frightened crew the rhinos were “just playing.” Meanwhile,
an emu put its head over a fence and bit Easton’s head. “This
isn’t in my job description,” she said repeatedly.
Humour
improves
creativity, lowers stress
Laughter
reduces stress because it’s relaxing and calming, says Steve
Wilson, founder of the World Laughter Tour, an organization based
in Gahanna, Ohio, that promotes therapeutic laughter and a vision
of world peace through laughter. He teaches “laughter yoga,”
a therapy started in India in 1995 that teaches people to laugh
without using jokes.
“Laughter
improves creativity and problem-solving. It activates the limbic
system in the brain, connecting the right and left sides. It helps
you do more whole brain work,” he says.
Under
acute stress, the two hemispheres of the brain become disconnected.
For instance, if you’re late to work or an event, you’ll
fumble, drop things and make mistakes. Laughter works as a relaxation
response and calms the system. “One of the myths is that laughter
is trivial,” he says. “It’s very powerful.”
Merely smiling can be healing and reassuring.
Humour
changes perception
 Robert
Harris, a real-estate agent with Troop Real Estate in Simi Valley,
California, attributes much of his success to using humour in his
job. “I take what I do very seriously, but buying a house is
one of the most stressful acts a person can participate in,”
says Harris, who expects to close more than $30 million in sales
in 2001. “Introducing some humour or lighthearted moments helps
relieve stress for all parties.”
In
a field that lends itself to frustration and delays, Harris tries
to make buyers and sellers more comfortable by interjecting humour.
“Most of my business is from referrals. I think that people
come back to me both from the smoothness of the transaction and
because they enjoyed being with me,” he says.
“Inside
jokes” may lead to team-building
The
first time a new employee laughs with new co-workers is usually
the first time he or she feels part of the team in a new environment.
Says Wilson, “You know you have an ‘inside joke’
when everybody at work laughs, but nobody at home does.” Ironic
or “black humour” can even have a place. “It doesn’t
mean we aren’t compassionate,” he says. “We’re
discharging tension.”
Richard
Jacobson, a news anchor with a Los Angeles radio station, says having
an ironic sense of humour helps him and, sometimes, his listeners.
“As a journalist, you encounter the rough edges of society
much like firefighters, policemen and physicians. A certain amount
of humour allows you to keep your emotional equilibrium,” says
Jacobson.
He
likes to end newscasts with back-of-the-book stories. He might introduce
police-blotter items by saying, “And now for another chapter
of stupid criminal tricks.” After telling the story of a man
who was trapped unhurt in a sewer overnight, Jacobson played Art
Carney’s “The Sewer Song” from “The Honeymooners.”
Making
the effort
It
isn’t always easy to find humour in business. Daniel Saintjean,
a Montreal publisher and professional speaker, says it takes effort
to incorporate humour into presentations, e-mails and letters, but
using a funny quote, cartoon or other humour “has the effect
of loosening someone’s tie or shoelaces. It relaxes them for
a moment.”
President
Bush used this technique at a ceremony commemorating National Hispanic
Heritage month on September 28, 2001. It was an emotional event
that included Latin singers and representatives from the Hispanic
community. When Bush stood to speak, he said, “Mi Casa Blanca,
es su Casa Blanca.” This light joke visibly lifted the heavy
mood.
In
his workshops and speeches, Heckler promotes finding humour in the
workplace. “Humour is what’s obvious, but we have been
trained to be too polite to mention it,” he says. He hunts
for mirth in posted signs. At one meeting, he noticed a sign that
read: “For restrooms: Use stairs.” He’s mentioned
September 11 in all his speeches since the attack, but still preaches
the benefits of humour. While it may seem rude or unfeeling to inject
humour during this time in US history, he notes that humour is needed
more than ever now “to maintain our equilibrium, indeed, our
souls.”
—www.hrhub.com
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