Laughter Lifts the Load
In tough times, humor is an essential survival skill. Talk can also be funny. Not the sarcastic biting humor of put-downs and inside jokes, but rather the humor that can lighten a difficult situation or put something in perspective.
A travel agency was known for helping its agents get through difficult customers by awarding the Order of the SALMON. At the end of the week, agents would know which agent had the most challenging week with customers yet still managed to keep a positive interaction going. With much fanfare, the agent explained the challenge and was urged to exaggerate and use as much humor as possible. She was then awarded a plastic salmon for her ability to SWIM UP STREAM. Being able to talk about the week, laugh at the difficulties, and be rewarded for staying calm helped generate both fun and connection within the office.
Laughter can put people at ease if it is used to acknowledge what everyone is thinking. I was asked to speak at a convention in which the main session room temperature hovered around 50 degrees. People were wrapped in tablecloths. By the end of the second day, it still had not warmed up. When it was my turn to talk, I welcomed them by saying, “Welcome to the land of the frozen chosen.”
Gales of laughter and applause burst out. It made a point. The attendees were CHOSEN to be there. It was a privilege.
Humor also lets us divide the serious from the mundane. Yes—the room was way too cold. But in the scheme of things, it was not as important as gathering to work out a new marketing strategy. Humor can also point out the trite and the silly things we all do in work, relieve tension, and probably improve a process. When one group acted out a very funny skit around the various voice mail doom loops a customer had to go through in order to get to a human being, everyone laughed…and the system changed in short order.
Break the Silence
The greater challenge will be pulling people away from their smart phones and text messaging to actually have a conversation. A number of organizations are experimenting with “topless” meetings—as in laptop-less meetings. Years ago, San Francisco design firm, Adaptive Path, put a crackdown on “crackberries”, as former President Todd Wilkens called them in his company-wide blog. He claimed that people would now look each other in the eye, develop closer connections and meetings are more productive.
Productivity? Performance? If the talk quotient is increased, you bet. Talk might very well become the golden key.
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