The bar in business is very low. I think all of us can do an inventory of our lives, and we can come up with things that we can then try to be funny about. This is what our students do all quarter, every week, they have to write down ten observations from their life. So you coun do this. Write one observation of an incongruity, something odd, something that you noticed. And then at the end of the week, look at your seven observations and just try and turn one into comedy while, ever the professor, assigning home work. What began as a sobering realization about humorless tuesdays ends with students reporting significantly more joy in their
Humor does more than just make people laugh. It allows you to connect with your audience, diffuse tension, elevate status, and compel others to your point of view. Humor can also help you and your message stand out, yet most of us hesitate to use humor, especially in our professional lives.
In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Matt Abrahams speaks with Stanford GSB Professor Jennifer Aaker and Lecturer Naomi Bagdonas about when and how humor operates in the work place. “Many believe that humor simply has no place amidst serious work,” Professor Aaker says. “Yet showing your sense of humor can make your peers and your friends attribute more perceptions of confidence and status to us while also cultivating a sense of trust.”
Aaker and Bagdonas are are the authors of Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life, which comes out in October of this year.
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