I was drawn into thinking about humour this week, after the visit from a photographer (and old friend) who snapped away and told me as a parting shot that I would make a great after-dinner speaker. Being compelled to smile for two solid hours requires a strategy in my book. So, I girded my loins, to pretend I was talking on camera to an imaginary interviewer, who I would ‘entertain’ and engage with amusing anecdotes and mini sketches, dreamt up on the spot. All very tiring I can assure you, as creativity always is. But at the end of the session, the effort had served its purpose and I had smiled and laughed enough to produce a thoroughly enjoyable and successful couple of hours. I’m guessing my photographer friend enjoyed himself too, judging by his comments.
A sense of humour
This whole episode in turn has led me to reflect on what I’ve learnt over the years, through my own professional development experience, about the role of humour in business. Being instinctively an emotional learner (hate the word kinaesthetic!), it has been a source of joy to me to gain more knowledge on the importance of humour in human relations and to get a little bit of understanding of how it all works. My take on it is, whilst it clearly isn’t brain surgery or rocket science (to coin a phrase) and for the average person an amygdala is not something they’re going to have much to do with, it’s a good idea for anyone in business to have an understanding of the basic principles.
Building a rapport
Humour relaxes not just you, but anybody in your ‘audience’. Whether that’s a simple smile, or a full-on shared laugh for all. Humour requires nerve, energy, preparation of material and careful reading of the audience to ensure a good connection. As anyone who’s miscued a joke can tell you, a failed connection removes any rapport very effectively and can do a lot to ensure no future rapport is built in the short term. Done well, humour creates a close bond between all those sharing the expression of emotion, the smile or the laughter. With that bond established, it’s often possible to go on and create, in an honourable way, a deeper and more significant understanding, which in turn can open the door to all manner of mutually-beneficial initiatives.
The science of humour
By the way if you’re interested, the amygdala and the hippocampus are the two parts of the limbic system involved in the production of laughter. This part of the brain is essential to many of the basic behaviours which preserve life. It is related to motivation and emotional behaviour, in addition to making the necessary connections for laughter to occur. Of course, as most people know, during laughter, endorphins are also released, making us feel happier and less stressed.
In conclusion, if you’re ever tempted to look down on humour as a serious businessperson, perhaps think again and see what injecting a bit of humour into a situation can achieve. It hasn’t done me any harm and it’s given me a lot of fun along the way…