Humour has an ROI. Here's how to laugh at work

IN 2014, the behavioural scientist Jennifer Aaker invited Naomi Bagdonas to give a guest lecture as part of her Stanford business school course on "The Power of Story". Unbeknown to many, Ms Bagdonas, a media and strategy consultant who was completing her Master of Business Administration (MBA) at Stanford at the time, also spent evenings and weekends performing improv at comedy clubs.

Though the lecture was ostensibly about combining stories and data, with detours into factor analysis and neurochemistry, Dr Aaker watched with delight and surprise as students laughed to the point of tears over Ms Bagdonas' delivery. And when the course evaluations came in, students recalled her points with more clarity and detail than they did for almost any other guest speaker.

If stories have power, it seemed, funny ones had something close to magic.

Dr Aaker and Ms Bagdonas now teach a course together at Stanford called "Humour: Serious Business", which shows aspiring executives and entrepreneurs how to leverage laughter for better relationships and business results. They have also distilled their findings into a new book, Humour, Seriously: Why Humour Is A Secret Weapon in Business and Life.

But can people really be taught to be funny at work? Should people be taught to be funny at work? If you explain a joke, its force disperses. And the framing of humour as a tool of self-advancement is somewhat unsettling, evoking the image of a sociopath calmly studying the human psyche's soft spots to exploit them for professional gain.

Humour at work is much less about wisecracks than about levity: the shared moments of lightness that propel relationships forward and balance the seriousness of labour.

Levity is strikingly absent from a lot of adult life, particularly in professional settings. Levity is a powerful bonding agent. A workplace that embraces laughter is likely one that also encourages the kind of creativity, authenticity and psychological safety that allows people to perform their best. Humour is a Trojan horse for humanity - and that, Dr Aaker and Ms Bagdonas argue, is the thing that knits people and organisations together.

The New York Times (NYT) caught up with the pair of them over Zoom to learn more about professional levity, and why a leader does not have to be funny to build a team that embraces humour.

The conversation has been edited.

NYT: What do people not understand about humour when they first come to your class - or open your book?

Ms Bogdonas: In the book, we break down four myths of humour. The first is the "serious business" myth, which is the idea that levity undermines the mission of your work, that you can come off as not taking your job seriously if you're joking around. This is simply not true.

Managers with a sense of humour are more motivating and admired. Their employees are more engaged. Their teams are more likely to solve a creativity challenge. There is all this evidence around the return on investment (ROI) of humour.

And then the failure myth: People think that failing at humour is going to have these huge repercussions. We teach our students that it is so much less about telling jokes. It is about cultivating joy.

There is the "being funny" myth, which is that humour is about cracking jokes. Again, it is really not about that. It is about being more generous with your laughter. It is about naming truths in our lives and giving a window into our humanity.

And then lastly, the "born with it" myth, which is the idea that our sense of humour is either there or it is not. In fact, it is a muscle that we can work.

NYT: You make a great analogy in the book comparing the relationship between levity, humour and comedy to that between movement, exercise and competitive athletics.

Ms Bagdonas: Levity is a mindset, an inherent state of how you approach the world. Similarly, movement is how we move through space. Minor adjustments in the way that we move, or in our mindset around levity, have major adjustments in how we feel and how people interact with us.

Humour then channels levity toward these specific goals. When you go for a run, you are using movement in a specific way. In humour, you hone levity into a specific outcome.

Similarly, with comedy and with sports, there are specific moves you can make to get the outcomes you want. Comedians know exactly how to pause before the punch line, how to construct sentences, how to use the rule of three or contrast or exaggeration to get the outcome they want - which is, in this case, laughs. It is just like how athletes know the exact form that they should use.

NYT: That is a good analogy. You can have a healthy, happy life as someone who exercises regularly but never crosses over into athletic competition. It sounds like it is also fine to be a person who appreciates humour but prefers not to be the one cracking jokes.

Dr Aaker: It is not about "trying to be funny". That's the Michael Scott problem. Dick Costolo, the former chief executive officer (CEO) of Twitter, has said: "The easiest way to be funny is not to try - instead, just look for moments to laugh." This is not about being funny. This is about being generous with laughter. You are empowering others to use it, and showing up much more as a human - not a clown.

NYT: How can leaders ensure the humour they are encouraging is appropriate?

Dr Aaker: Many people who have used humour to good effect in the past often equate humour with their style of humour. Like, "I just threw out a joke, it didn't land, I think it would have two years ago, therefore the world is not funny anymore." The calculation is not that the world is humourless, per se. It is that we need to better understand the diversity of humour styles that other people have, and better understand - through empathy more than anything else - how to better read a room and understand the dynamics of status.

What is interesting is that while trust in leadership is plunging - which is a problem for leaders who have used the same old jokes for a while - those organisations that somehow manage to maintain a high-trust environment are thriving.

We know that when employees rate what characteristics inspire trust, their answers are things like, "My boss speaks like a regular person". We're living in a time when empathy, inclusivity and authenticity are important for all leaders. Humour is actually a secret weapon that can serve them well.

NYT: So how do we keep levity alive on remote teams, when you don't have the in-person benefits of facial expression and tone, or feel like you have much to laugh about?

Ms Bagdonas: This was such a pressing need that at the beginning of the pandemic that we created a course called "Remotely Humorous", which is all about having humour in remote teams. Part of this is creating space for it. We need to have a norm that, at the beginning of every call, we just talk like humans rather than jump right into the agenda. We talk about what just happened with our kids, or whose dog is running around in the background or what genuine mishap has happened in people's lives due to this pandemic.

Even though maintaining levity feels harder, there are also more creative ways to do it. It is also more important than ever because the more technology-mediated our communication becomes, the easier it is to leave our humanity and our sense of humour at the door. When we are constantly talking through machines, it is easier to behave like one as well.

When jokes aren't funny

What counts as boundary-pushing comedy to one person is downright rude to another. Here are rules for checking yourself to ensure your "material" does not cause pain, say Dr Aaker and Ms Bagdonas.

Examine the truth. Is this observation still true or appropriate to share when the humour is removed? They offer the example of a recent Cisco hire who tweeted about having to weigh "a fatty paycheck against ... hating the work". It may have been intended as a laugh, but it essentially said that the author disliked the potential new employer. The joke failed and the offer was rescinded.

Consider the pain and distance. Is it too soon to make a crack about a troubling recent event? Are you, the attempted jokester, not close enough to the issue to truly share the pain you are trying to laugh about?

Read the room. Are people in the mood for a laugh? Are there cultural differences, status differences or other reasons your audience might feel awkward about fielding a joke? The goal of office humour is not to get a laugh; it is to make everyone in the room feel lighter and more at ease. NYTIMES