Humor is a Serious Business
Stanford Graduate School of Business launched the inaugural Humor: Serious Business class a few years ago. The interactive class is designed to help students develop an appreciation for the role of humor in the workplace. The innovators behind this course are Stanford Professor Jennifer Aaker and Lecturer Naomi Bagdonas. Consequently, the two brought in comedians and business executives who encourage humor at their companies as well as use it themselves.
“Next to power without honor, the most dangerous thing in the world is power without humor.” - Eric Sevareid (Journalist)
Why is it so important to the classroom and the business world?
According to Bagdonas, humor in the classroom and workplace is about power (and importance) of humor to make positive changes in the world. Additionally, it helps achieve business objectives, builds more effective and innovative organizations. It cultivates stronger bonds and captures more lasting memories. Bagdonas’s goal is to help infuse humanity, humility and intellectual perspective that only humor can bring.
Studies are linking the use of humor to perceived status, confidence, competence, and improved creative problem solving.
“Humor is a superpower — one that’s incredibly under leveraged in business,” says Bagdonas. Unfortunately, often humor is considered a distraction, but it can be a real asset. According to Aaker, humor can build bonds and strengthen relationships in the workplace and classroom. Recently, research by Jeff Pfeffer, Stefanos Zenios, and Joel Goh shows that workplace stress (fueled long hours, job insecurity and lack of work-life balance) causes at least 120,000 deaths each year and accounts for up to $190 billion in health care costs.
Laughter makes us more physically resilient to tense work environments and stressors of corporate life.
Bagdonas says that humor is important as it releases oxytocin, which facilitates social bonding and increases trust. Furthermore, when people laugh together at work or in a classroom relationships improve, people feel more valued and trusted, and in effect, mitigating the effects of workplace stressors.
“Fear kills creativity, and humor is our most powerful tool to drive fear out of the system” - Kiroki Asai (head of marketing communications at Apple)
According to Aaker humor brings humanity and empathy back into business in a way that’s rare. Above all, what both Aaker and Bagdonas are trying to do is instill a mindset that “taking your work seriously, doesn’t mean you need to be serious all the time.” Being serious and being humorous can compliment each other - the right balance of levity and gravity gives power to both.
To find the balance, some practical applications where humor can be used in the classroom or workplace are:
Writing a bio
Creating a company pitch
Delivering a speech
Aaker says, “Our hope is that these students go on to instill a mindset of levity into the organizations they lead. That is, build humor into the culture and practices of everyday. From All Hands Meetings, to new employee welcomes, to otherwise mundane logistics emails.”