Humor That Works » Humor Benefits

Sparking Creativity in Teams: A Humorist’s Guide

Andrew Tarvin — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:35:44 +0000

The McKinsey Quarterly recently released their Top 10 Articles of 2011. You can read them here (note: free registration is required).

One of the articles in particular caught my eye because it speaks directly to humor (though sadly doesn’t mention it directly). The article?

#9 Sparking creativity in teams: An executive’s guide

The article talks about creativity and how it’s not something you are either born with or not:

Although creativity is often considered a trait of the privileged few, any individual or team can become more creative—better able to generate the breakthroughs that stimulate growth and performance.

It goes on to suggest some of the neuroscience to back up this claim:

The key is to focus on perception, which leading neuroscientists, such as Emory University’s Gregory Berns, find is intrinsically linked to creativity in the human brain. To perceive things differently, Berns maintains, we must bombard our brains with things it has never encountered….

Only by forcing our brains to recategorize information and move beyond our habitual thinking patterns can we begin to imagine truly novel alternatives.

Hmm. “Perceive things differently.” “Recategorize information.” “Brains.” All of this sounds like humor. One of the keys to humor is incongruity–the surprise, the difference, the “wait a sec” feeling.

Using humor is a great way to get people thinking differently, outside of their normal perspective. And this doesn’t mean you have to get your team to tell jokes (though it could help, check out Funny Cuz It’s True). Instead it could be as simple as creating an environment that is incongruous to what they expect.

Don’t hold the brainstorming session in the same room every other meeting is in, or play music in the background so you don’t have the same bland white noise in the background. Studies show that getting out of the office (mentally and physically) can remove creative roadblocks.

Humor also helps with creating new connections as much of humor is connecting two things together in an uncommon or new way. As the article says,

The most powerful overall driver of innovation was associating—making connections across “seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas.”

Humor can do that. And it all becomes easier when you follow the tenets of improvisation: treat your fellow peers like geniuses and poets and Yes And.

If you’re interested in learning how humor can help your creativity, check out our problem-solving workshops.

PS. Two other articles stuck out to be from the Top 10 that are worth reading: #2 Seven steps to better brainstorming and #10 Three steps to building a better top team.

Ricky Gervais on the Principles of Comedy

Andrew Tarvin — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:14:24 +0000

An interesting perspective on comedy from Ricky Gervais. I think one of his best points is that comedy is about empathy and that we tend to laugh with the people that we like (and also tend to like the people with whom we laugh).

Your Brain on Improv

Andrew Tarvin — Tue, 03 May 2011 11:31:48 +0000

An interesting TEDx talk on Your Brain on Improv. It doesn’t have a lot of conclusions but it does give an insight as to what’s happening when you improvise and how that may relate to creativity.

5 Reasons to Use Humor in an Interview

Andrew Tarvin — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 15:43:06 +0000

When preparing for an interview, it’s likely you have been given the advice to be serious when you meet with people at your prospective job; it’s important to know that advice is absolutely wrong (unless you’re interviewing to be a funeral director, banker (of doom), or to play Buster Keaton in a biopic).

It’s true that interviews are an important part of the hiring process, and as an interviewee, you have a very personal stake in wanting it to go well, but the perception that avoiding humor during an interview is the safer option is fundamentally flawed.

Desire to control the outcome of the interview often leads people to not use humor because it feels unsafe, but the safest path is to be the greatest job candidate that any of the evaluators have ever seen. Unless you have abilities far beyond those of mortal men, you’re better off being the kind of person they want to work with.

So here, to dispel any misconceptions or misunderstandings, are 5 Reasons to Use Humor in an Interview.

1. To Show You’re More than Just a Good Worker

If you’ve been asked to come in for an interview, then either you’re already qualified for the job or the company likes wasting its time. Being a good fit for the company on paper makes you a shoo-in only if you and the other candidates are all robots.

No matter how great your resume is, people still have to work with you, so a significant portion of any interview will be spent evaluating your facility in working with others. By using humor during the interview, you demonstrate how well you’d fit in to their office environment, and showing you belong there puts you one step closer to being there.

2. To Model How You’ll Behave in the Job

Given the current trend of behavioral interviews, sometimes you may wonder how to answer interview questions diplomatically. Humor is a tool you can use to truthfully answer these interview questions while simultaneously avoiding negative behaviors like assigning blame or complaining.

When questions like “describe a time when you had to work in a challenging work environment” come up (and they will), humor is an especially good way of discussing the difficulties in a positive manner.

By showing you have a sense of humor about a situation that was likely stressful when you were in it, you clearly demonstrate that you have moved on from negative aspects of the situation and now see it as a learning experience. In other words, you’re showing your interviewer that you’re a model employee.

3. To Demonstrate Your Social Skills

It’s hard to be successful and a misanthrope unless you own your own business or happen to be a fictional character. Not many people interview themselves before starting their own business and I have it on good authority Gregory House doesn’t visit this site, so neither of those audiences will be addressed in this article.

Unavoidably (and luckily), workplaces are filled with people. Depending on your role at work, you may be called on to interact with these fellow humans occasionally, or even more frequently than that.

In fact, several times a year you may be called upon to interact with coworkers in a purely social setting, rather than a work-related setting. Using humor during an interview sends a strong signal that you can navigate the professional and social dynamics of the company.

4. To Show You Can Roll with the Punches

Just like when you’re on the job, things can go wrong during an interview. Rather than being bad, these moments are opportunities to show how calm and unflappable you are. Being able to bring levity to a situation that would cause stress in other people provides a very concrete example of you handling a potentially frustrating or stressful situation without becoming unpleasant to work with.

5. To Get To Know The Other Person Better

At a fundamental level, every interview is the same, because every interview is a conversation. When approached this way, an interview is an opportunity for you to engage with the interviewer and, all job considerations aside, forge a connection with another human being.

Humor is a powerful tool for creating an open and honest feeling. When someone smiles, you know if it’s genuine or forced (just ask Guillaume Duchenne).

The base honesty involved in sharing humor acts to build trust where everyone involved can be more open, which makes it more likely you and the interviewer will have a great— and memorable— talk.

Just look at it from the interviewer’s perspective. After interviewing a number of people over the course of several days, are you more likely to remember the person who answered every question perfectly by rote, or the person who you had a great conversation with and actually made the time you spent with them enjoyable?

Got your own thoughts on using humor in interviews? Share them in the comments.

$5000 or a Stranger’s Happiness?

Andrew Tarvin — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:49:13 +0000

Which do you think would make you happier, receiving a $5,000 pay raise or having a friend of a friend of a friend who is generally happy?

According to a recent survey conducted at Harvard Medical School, the friend of a friend of a friend (aka someone you’ve never met) being happy increases the chance of you being happier three times more than if you got the $5,000 raise.

The study found that if a friend of a friend of a friend is happy, you have a six percent chance of being happier (versus two percent caused by a $5,000 pay raise). If it’s a friend of a friend who’s happy, the odds jump to 10 percent, and if it’s a direct friend, 15 percent.

They also discovered that this works for sour moods as well, though not as strongly. Each “unhappy connection” decreased the chance of a person being happy by seven percent. That means if you have 14 friends, friends of friends, or friends of friends of friends who are unhappy, you are 98% more likely to be unhappy.

How does that affect you? Well in addition to underscoring the importance of surrounding yourself with people who are generally happy, it also emphasizes the impact you have on other people. When you’re happy, you increase the liklihood of your friends being happy by 15 percent (and people you don’t even know by six percent)!

So if not for yourself, than for the good of mankind (that might be a slight exaggeration), be happy.

5 Benefits of Vacation

Andrew Tarvin — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 00:11:33 +0000

A reader over at Ask a Manager posted a question asking how to take a vacation when there’s always work to be done, and Allison gave a great answer about establishing criteria for being able to leave and mentioning that vacation time for employees is good for both the company and the worker. I completely agree with this dual benefit vacations have (as I’m sure many people do), but is there any way to prove it?

Luckily there are people out there that do studies on this type of stuff. Usually they have fancy titles like “professor” or “doctor” and wear labcoats, which is fine by me because someone needs to support the labcoat industry. But what these people do is quantify what we all know to be true qualitatively. With that said, here are 5 benefits of vacation.

1. Live longer.

A study reported in Psychosomatic Medicine (what a cool name) showed that men with a high risk of heart disease who take regular vacations are 30% less likely to die from a heart attack, and 21% less likely to die from any cause (including death metal). And not to exclude women, a study from the Framingham Heart Study showed that women who take at least take 2 vacations per year were 8 times less likely to develop coronary heart disease than women who took only one every six years.

2. Be happier.

A study from the Wisconsin Medical Journal suggests women who take frequent vacations (at least once a year) are less likely to become tense, depressed or tired and are more satisfied with their marriages. For the guys, re-read that last part: women who take frequent vacations are more satisfied in their marriages–the alone is one heckuva benefit of vacation.

3. Improve sleep.

A study from Air New Zealand found that people averaged an hour more of quality of sleep after a few days of vacation. They also saw their reaction times improve by 80 percent, so I’m hoping NYC cab drivers are taking vacations.

4. Improve productivity.

A survey deployed by Expedia found that, when returning from vacation, more than one-third of respondents feel more productive and better about their jobs (with more than half also claiming to feel rested, rejuvenated and reconnected to their personal life). Sounds like reason enough to me to take vacation from the office.

5. Solve problems.

An experiment at Indiana University found that students did a better job at solving problems when the problems were said to be from far away (such as India for students in Indiana). The thought is that when we think about problems at a local level, our thoughts are more constrained and bounded by a more limited set of associations. Most of us aren’t fortunate enough to be solving problems for countries around the world, so instead we can take a vacation and travel to new locales, opening our associations for better problem solving.

For more on the benefits of vacation (aka sources):

You need that vacation.
Are Vacations Good for Your Health?
Vacations provide mental health benefits for women
A Little Vacation Can Increase Employee Productivity
The Benefits of Vacation

Optimists Live Longer

Andrew Tarvin — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 22:35:55 +0000

A recent study shows that being optimistic may lead to living longer. In a study of 100,000 women, those rated optimistic were 14% less likely to die than pessimists during the study’s first eight years.

Why do optimists live longer? The science doesn’t quite tell us but one theory presented is that “Optimists have strong social networks and handle stress better.” Or perhaps it’s that people tend to do things longer when they really enjoy what they’re doing, and that includes living.

Source: Do Good, Feel Good… Be Well. Reader’s Digest, June 2009.

Need Some Insight? Let Your Mind Wander

Andrew Tarvin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:56:27 +0000

I recently found an article on Discover Magazine titled Stop Paying Attention: Zoning Out Is a Crucial Mental State. The article analyzes a series of studies, mostly by psychologist Jonathan Schooler, on mind wandering.

The studies suggests that letting the mind wander can help us do critical thinking, even if we don’t realize it. It’s the reason people have moments of great insight in the shower and why comedians carry a pen with them–that perfect punchline might come to you while zoning out in a meeting.

This doesn’t mean that you should let your mind go free at all times–when our minds wander we are more likely to make mistakes and less likely to commit new information to memory. Instead, designating periods for free thinking can give you the benefits of letting your mind wander while keeping you from zoning out while your boss is giving an important presentation.

Just let your boss know the next time he catches you day dreaming that you’re actually working on that key issue you’ve been scrambling to solve, you’re just letting the subconscious do it.

Source: Stop Paying Attention: Zoning Out Is a Crucial Mental State, by Carl Zimmer. Discover Magazine, June 2009.

You Just Gotta Laugh

Andrew Tarvin — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:37:40 +0000

An article on nursetogether shares some of the reasons why laughter is healthy, not just physically but psychologically as well. Some of the benefits include:

Laughing teaches us it’s OK to be out of control.
Laughing brings us into the moment.
Laughing helps us think more clearly.

For more benefits, and a list of ways to incorporate laughter into your life, check out the full article. Ready for your own laugh? Take a gander at some office humor.

Source: You Just Gotta Laugh by LeAnn Thieman LPN, CSP, CPAE. nursetogether, 2009.

Anticipating a Laugh Reduces Stress

Andrew Tarvin — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 22:12:27 +0000

Research at a university in California suggests that just anticipating a humorous experience can help boost immunity and reduce stress. The scientific study measured various hormone levels of two groups; one group anticipated watching a humorous video, and the other did not.

Some of the highlights from the study include:

The anticipation of mirthful laughter increased two hormones associated with alleviating depression and improving immunity by an average of 57%.
Three stress hormones were also reduced by an average of 49% when anticipating laughter
As the lead researcher stated, “Our findings lead us to believe that by seeking out positive experiences that make us laugh we can do a lot with our physiology to stay well.”

Ready to laugh for better health? Just take a second to anticipate watching some great office humor videos, then click on through and actually reap the benefits of laughter.

Source: Anticipating a Laugh Reduces Our Stress Hormones, Study Shows, American Physiological Study. Science Daily, April 2008.