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So let’s talk a bit about the Will Smith Chris Rock slap incident. While the meme game surrounding the incident is pretty strong, there have been quite a few social media posts, articles, responses, threads, tweets, tik-toks as well. Were I to link them all, I’d spend more time making hyperlinks than I would writing. Like the title says, I am approaching this as someone who researches humor and comedy for a living. One of the first things we need to get clear about is whether the joke Rock made was an attempt at humor or an attempt at comedy. This is really an important first step in figuring out what response one might give. So much of what I’ve seen written on the issue seems to ignore this. People say things like “If that had been my wife he’d made the joke about, I’d have smacked him too.” Or “Rock shouldn’t be making fun of someone with a disease.” But both these responses assume that Rock was doing humor and not comedy. You may be wondering what the difference is. Maybe one way to get at the difference is to note that comedy is a subset of humor, a subset of things we might call a humorous activity. Jokes with our friends, memes shared at the office, or simply laughing at something that strikes us as funny is humor, but not necessarily comedy. Comedy is something more like a performance. Comedians do comedy. Your office worker Nanette may be funny, may be the “office comedian” but she’s not doing comedy. Comedy is best thought of as humor done specifically as a form of formal entertainment. We go to the theater to see one of Shakespeare’s comedies. We watch a comedian perform on stage. We read comic novels, or watch sit-coms. These are all socially well-defined spaces. Humor can be done anywhere and can sometimes catch us off-guard. But comedy is not that way. We generally know when to expect comedy given the environment we’re in. So you might be thinking that I think that Rock’s joke was comedy, because he’s a comedian. And you’re right, I do. But that’s not the only reason. Rock made the joke on the stage at the Oscars. He and Will Smith were at an entertainment event. Rock was doing a bit for sure. Was the bit in poor taste? Possibly, was it not funny? To some yes, to others no. But this wasn’t Rock telling the joke at the after-party to Smith when he was outside of work or off stage. Rock was invited to the Oscars because he’s a comedian. Many of the recent Oscar hosts have been comedians. This was entertainment. It was theater. Rock was doing what comedians do. He was making a joke. If Rock was doing his job as a comic is Smith justified in hitting him? The answer is no. There is, obviously the whole issue of responding to words with slaps, and the general idea is that no one should hit someone for offensive language, but that’s a different issue. The reason Smith shouldn’t have hit Rock is because we don’t blame comedians for doing their job. Even if the job entails giving offense. Sometimes we even expect offense if we take in a show by an insult comic. Celebrity roasts are the same thing. But this wasn’t a roast of course. If Rock is acting as an entertainer, as a comedian, he has pretty wide latitude to make the jokes he wants. Rock is also a comedian who does push boundaries, he wades into topics that are tendentious and taboo. And let’s not forget that that particular joke wasn’t just something he came up with on the spot. He’s a famous, practiced, and adept comedian. He writes his material. He works it out ahead of time. He didn’t just ad-lib that and drop an offensive joke. This was a scripted bit. Again, all the more reason to think Rock was doing comedy and not just trying to be funny. Another way to think about this is to imagine what it would do to comedy in general if practicing comedians had to make sure their work didn’t offend an audience member enough that they took to slapping them. If I were an insult comic I would think twice about where or if I would do certain jokes if I had to worry that someone thought it was ok to hit me if they didn’t like the joke or were offended. Many performers have made this same sort of point. I think it’s a bit of a slippery slope to think that suddenly it’s open season on performers given what happened. However, there is a real worry that by failing to notice the difference between a person doing comedy and someone simply trying to do a joke, that some folks will think they have a right to express their offense by hitting a comedian who’s doing their job. As raunchy and foul-mouthed as an insult comic can get, people don’t hit them. And if you’ve never seen a roast, check them out. They are no holds barred. In my opinion, Smith should have left in the same way that a person who doesn’t like a sit-com stops watching, or a person who finds the jokes in a particular book not to their liking and stops reading. He had no right to hit Rock. Rock wasn’t insulting his wife, he was making a joke, and indeed making fun of Jada Pinkett-Smith. But he was doing so as the Chris Rock the Comic, not Chris Rock the friend or acquaintance. Humor is humor and comedy is a special form of humor that plays an important social role in almost every society. Smith’s actions showed that the difference between the two is fragile and we would all do better to try and understand the issues. As I end this, Smith has publicly apologized and I would wager personally apologized. I am not here to say that Smith is a bad person, I think that’s clearly false. He made a mistake. But with any act that has so much exposure, it has brought to the fore a host of issues that are important for us to be aware of. I can’t hope to cover them all, and there are ones I am not aware of that deserve attention. But as someone who thinks and worries about issues related to humor, this aspect of the situation deserved attention. I’ll leave the other issues to those who can write or speak more about them.

If you’re reading this, that means you’re interested in leadership and are thinking that if you find read that next article, you’ll find some new nugget of information that will help you. You may, but do yourself a favor and don’t try too hard to follow all those lists. It’s a fool’s errand. Plus, if what I have to say about it below, these lists are incomplete in some basic ways. There are a number of missing pieces to leadership which we’ll get to in a moment. But do me a favor and do an internet search for “best leadership traits” and have a look. Don’t worry, I’ll wait. You have top 5, top 7, top 10, 12, 15, 25, and I even saw one that was 100 or more. They have a variety of similarities and some have some differences. But they’re all missing one huge item. Humor. Most leadership lists that appear in any search completely ignore humor and it has a lot to do with why you even bothered to look up leadership traits in the first place. When people have questions about what makes leaders effective, they start reading articles about effective leadership. Those articles are jam-packed with terms like “good communicator,” “smart,” “visionary” and other inspirational terms. Leaders are almost mythical beings who are haloed by the powerful words meant to engage people. The problem with this focus on the rarefied airs of leadership like the above is that it reinforces a basic problem that makes our organizational spaces so in need of leaders—it ignores the basic connections that people need to have with one another in order to build strong leadership. Leaders don’t just come in and lead, they work to build connections, to engage with those around them so that they are able to put into practice the visions they and those with whom they work have. One incredibly effective way to create and foster those connections is humor. Humor is a basic way we feel connected to each other. The people you laugh with, the people you share jokes with, send memes to, etc. are all people with whom you’re close. Of course a leader won’t be in on all the inside jokes that people have, that’s not the point. But a leader that cannot share a laugh with those they lead, who feels just enough removed from the people in the organization that they don’t feel comfortable sharing a joke, those leaders are less effective. They are less likely to help those around them feel engaged, or feel as if the leader cares about them. So if you’re looking for a way to build the sort of necessary connections to those around you, start by listening to them and finding ways to share a laugh, to find something funny together. When you do these sorts of things you are showing more of yourself than just being the boss. You’re actually starting to be a leader. We look up to our leader in large part because we connect with them. One of the easiest ways to foster that connection is through humor. Of course don’t make the mistake of doing what Seth Dozerman did. Leaders can demonstrate authenticity with their humor, or they can go the Dozerman route and have the humor create tension and division. If you’re interested in leadership, that’s a great start. Maybe start with a joke about how your first days as a leader have gone and see where that gets you. If that’s not a good place to start, then a little self-deprecatory humor is generally good. Whatever you do, start from a place that has you, your core values, your ideas and desires, and your leadership will be all the more effective. I have another few blog posts on this and related topics. Click here if you want to go back to that chain.

You often hear that you should stay away from using humor in interviews or when in meetings with new people or in formal spaces. This is good and sound advice. But as a humor researcher it’s sometimes hard to avoid. I am not suggesting that you prep some jokes for interviews, but sometimes having a funny story to tell about a situation or a work experience will help not only help the explanation, but if you can make folks smile as you interview (interviewing isn’t fun for most anyone involved) you’re going to look a better candidate. I was interviewing for what would be my second academic job. I really needed to do well because this was a tenure track job and I was staring down the barrel of unemployment. I was interviewing at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Fork ‘em Demons. The position was for the assistant director of the Louisiana Scholars’ College, an honors college. It was and is a great program. It was doing work that I wanted to do, the faculty were great, and the town was pretty cool. I had a pretty packed day, and one of my last meetings was with the then president of the university, Randy Webb. Randy passed recently and it was a loss for the university. It’s not typical that an assistant director position get such attention, but there I was. As I entered the office, not only was the president there, but so was his dean of students and now current president of NSU, Chris Maggio. I wasn’t overly nervous, but I wasn’t what you'd call relaxed either. The interview went in the pretty standard ways. I discussed my background, my previous history, some of what I would like to accomplish, and all the rest. The conversation was pleasant, engaging and then to my surprise Randy grabbed my CV and said, “It says here you study humor.” I said “yes.” “enjoyable work?” he asked, and I nodded in assent. He had actually read my CV. And then just like that, he said “Then tell me a joke.” If I wasn’t nervous before I was immediately petrified. It took me a second and I looked at him, trying to regain my composure, and said, or rather stammered out “Do you know how bad a joke can go in this sort of situation? Assuming I am doing well and you like me, if I tell the wrong sort of joke, I could go from being considered for the job to never being invited back.” Randy dismissed my worry and said something to the effect that I’d be fine. Trust me, no matter what he thought, I could bomb worse than any comedian and then lose a job I was interested in. I tried resisting, but there was one thing I learned that day, Randy wasn’t going to let go. I was on the spot, trying to think of a joke that was, 1) non-offensive, 2) funny, and 3) one I could remember. The best I came up with was a joke about golfers. I figured making fun of golfers wasn’t going to offend anyone, the joke was pretty clever and best of all, it was one I remembered. I was thinking a joke about university presidents might work, but I am not that much of a risk taker. I told the joke, both Chris and Randy laughed, and I laughed, but more from relief than humor. I have no idea if that joke helped or harmed my candidacy. Regardless I ended up getting the job and it was one of the better postings that I ever had. While Louisiana can keep the heat and humidity, Natchitoches was and is a great little town. I highly recommend you have a visit. But if you’re there on an interview, I’d still advise to keep the humor to a minimum and maybe be smarter than me and find a way to artfully dodge a request to be funny. Check back next week for some ideas on how you can artfully use humor in an interview to boost your chances of getting that job.

One of the things I try to tell people is that adding a little fun or humor in your day to day is not all that difficult. Take a look at the above picture. This sign, clever and funny, likely at park or other public space, sets exactly the right tone for humor in spaces like a workplace. Imagine walking in that park for the first time and you come upon that sign. I know I'd smile. I'd also snap a picture. What would you do? Making that sign isn't all that difficult. All you'd need to do is play around with an idea and then convince the parks department to open up the $100 or so bucks it costs for the sign, and put it up. The smiles that sign alone would draw would be worth it. Imagine watching a loved one of yours smile at it for the first time. That would easily be worth a C-note. On my Instagram page @mirthprofessor I post mostly funny images from workplaces and such. Give it a follow. I've become a huge fan of clever uses of the barcode on packages. But if you look around, they're all about us. Again, these little additions in our lives are not hard. It doesn't take much to think and be on the lookout for places for humor to thrive. Just take a look around. Look for word-plays. Imagine you had to come up with some Dad jokes. As we move forward in the world, humor can make everything better. We can enjoy our days in fun and clever ways if we only look for them. Have some fun with your day, place a funny sign at your desk, or in a hall. I use this one after I grade my students' first paper. It tends to help them relax a bit--college students can be uptight about their grades and with good reason. These little punctuation marks of fun enhance nearly everyone's day and the importance and value of that cannot be underestimated. And remember,

When I try to convince people that humor is important in medical care and practice, I trot out examples from the panoply of evidence that shows how humor helps people with disease, cancer, difficult treatments, and pain. The evidence is fairly clear and it's mounting. Humor is beneficial in a variety of ways when we treat individuals. Humor is restorative, regenerative, and, let's face it, enjoyable. Humor helps folks tolerate pain and stress more readily, makes people literally feel better, and improves patients’ outlooks on life and their condition. But there is another way that humor also beneficial in treatment situations. When I began to do my research into humor in medicine, I was focused, as most people are, on how humor helps the patients. I completely overlooked another important benefit. Humor is also beneficial for those providing the treatment and care. That's right, humor helps the caregiver. From family members to physicians alike, humor makes the interactions and relationships between caregivers and patients stronger and better. And this will certainly have salutary effects on how effective the healthcare relationship is. The problem now is that there is little evidence or research how humor helps those other than the patient. Some studies show that caregivers’ lives are improved, but these are typically in-home or family member caregivers, not staff you may see at an office or hospital. There is a good reason why the evidence is so scant. We think of physicians and medical professionals as ones who “deliver the best patient care.” In language very much inspired by business and marketing; care is patient oriented. This is not a bad thing. Who wants to go to a place where they even remotely suspect patient care is not the topmost priority? But the care professional/patient relationship involves two or more people. And like any relationship, there are ways we know that augment and diminish relationships. Humor can do both to be sure, but let’s focus on humor as an augmenting factor, especially for the physician. How do we know that humor is helpful to the doctor as well? One way is to simply ask physicians. Before writing this post, I had just completed a talk on humor and medical care and I went to visit a local dermatologist who had a reputation for using humor to great effect with his patients, Dr. S. Tafeen. I was very interested to get a first-hand account of how he used humor in his medical practice. I wanted to understand why he chose to feature it so prominently, and then see what sorts of benefits that the humor had for his patients. I also wanted to know if there were issues that had arisen. I was clearly patient focused in my approach. I asked Dr. Tafeen why he used humor and what caused him to really feature humor as a part of his interactions with patients. His answers were in line with the data. It helped patients to relax and be more communicative. It helped patients during procedures that were unpleasant and or painful. It also made the relationship so much better with his patients. I asked him if his humor had ever backfired. He paused, acknowledged that it had, and then told me, pointedly, that it had happened twice to his knowledge. Dr. Tafeen isn’t a new dermatologist; he’s been practicing for nearly 30 years. I then asked how he dealt with the failures. In another pointed and matter-of-fact response, he said he apologized, both with a hand-written letter and in person. The apology had the desired effect. The offended persons accepted the apology. As Dr. Tafeen and I discussed humor more and more, I imagine he sensed my focus on patient care and he made an interesting point. He stressed that his use of humor wasn’t only about the patient. He was clear that joking with his patients helped him to enjoy and cherish the relationship he had with his patients. And with the exceedingly high levels of physician burn-out he found that humor made him want to remain treating his patients. It made him want to stick around and remain a doctor. I cannot tell you how much I had missed this factor. Humor is as important to the doctor as it was to the patient. I might say that it was even more important in Dr. Tafeen’s case. To my narrow thinking and limited understanding of the way in which humor helps with both patients and care providers I simply never thought of how important humor is for the health care professional. It’s truly nice, and quite humbling, to have a part of the world you’re interested in opened up to you, despite your focus. We academics have been teased of our myopic approaches. Dr. Tafeen related stories of looking forward to the visits he got from patients that reciprocated his humor. People who not only enjoyed the jokes, but also shared their jokes with him and his staff. Even if he knew the basic joke or had heard it before, he dearly enjoys listening to his patients tell. While this isn’t terribly surprising, it isn’t something that one typically thinks about when one imagines the patient-physician relationship. Could you imagine an ad for a hospital where doctor humor is mentioned as a plus? Is humor part of the patient centered care model? Not one we would typically expect, but one we should hope is there. There is plenty of evidence that humor is important in working environs. Just as with patients dealing with pain and illness, we all deal with stress in our work lives. Physicians, nurses and care staff do as well. Further, is there anything perhaps more intimate that certain relationships with our physicians. Given that I am now of an age where certain exams must occur (the wonderful prostate exam), my physician knows me in ways my spouse doesn’t. 😉 Health care professionals more often than not deal with patients who are ill, distressed, or both. In such a place where good news is less typical, certainly good humor would make those days more bearable. Looking forward to not only dealing with a patient and her ills, but also her humor would make me open that chart with a smile, rather than a groan. Humor is just as important to the patient as the physician. And I heartily thank Dr. Tafeen for opening my eyes to this part of the relationship. The positive for researchers like me is that we now have another window for research, the effects of humor on the treating care provider, we also now have some strong anecdotal evidence how important humor is beyond the patient. Dr. Oliver Sacks once reminded medical care providers not to “look at the disease the person has, but rather the person the disease has.” I think in our understanding of humor we can also see how important it is not to see the medical provider as more than a vehicle of treatment, but also a partner in the care activity: a person who treats, not simply a deliverer of treatment. And if humor makes us do our jobs better, then medical care providers will benefit from an increase of their daily dosage of humor too.

I've been sparse in the postings lately, but that's due to parenting stuff, work-life (who knew having a full-time job and trying to get a business off the ground was so tough!?), and the rest. But things haven't been slack here at Mirth Management. I've given a talk on humor and health to the Wake Forest AHEC group. I have given a talk on humor and politics at Elon University. I also gave a talk at the Lighthearted Philosophers' Society on self-deprecatory humor. I also received good news that a short article I wrote on humor and the classroom will be featured on the Teaching Professor blog in a few short weeks. I will add a link soon. I will also be adding some new content and have been thinking of doing a Podcast or V-log on humor in the workplace. Maybe just a way to talk about how humor is used well in the classroom. If you're interested let me know. Have a good week and have a few laughs at work.

One of the hardest things any teacher, speaker or presenter has to do is keep their audience engaged. We well know and have all experienced losing focus. Sustained attention is just difficult. Even in classes where I wanted to be there, that I really wanted to learn, I still lost my focus at times. Hopefully I haven't bored you already. But that last sentence is a bit off the mark. I may have bored you (no really, I am way too interesting for that to be true), but the truth is, every five to ten minutes people lose focus. So if you're trying to get a message across in a training session, in a classroom, like I often do, or in speech or address, it's best to regularly place attention grabbers in your presentation. There are any number of ways to grab folks attention. Drop a seemingly irrelevant picture into the blog post. It was an attempt at playing on the "clever girl" line from Jurassic Park. Did it work? Did you stop and think a bit? If you did, that's good for me. You'll have to tell me whether it worked or not. Other examples I have come from my role as a teacher. As you may know, I teach philosophy and the resounding, repeated, and somewhat accurate complaint is that philosophy is boring and the readings too long and too ponderous. There's little I can do to change that so I try to use wit to keep students engaged. I work at an HBCU (Historically Black College or University) and I am not black. So often when my color comes up, I say that I am "melanin" challenged. The students have to work on that for a moment, but only a few, and they usually chuckle or give me a wry smile. Regardless, that different way of saying "I'm white" makes their minds work just a little bit to decode what I said. That feeling of figuring it out and the recognition that I was using wit is motivating. Sometimes, when talking about student success, I tell folks that they are more than willing to have a look at my undergraduate transcripts. One of the first things they'd notice is that the first two years of grades "don't have a lot of vowels in them." This one takes a bit longer to process, but people figure it out and as a result I usually gets real laughs and wider smiles. Being witty also has the added benefit of telling them that grades aren't the end all and be all. But in any case, they're back into a heightened attentive state. Finding clever or witty ways to make the same statement will do wonders to help keep your audience engaged. It also has the benefit of making you feel better when one of your "jokes" lands well. No matter how many times I use that line about grades, it rarely fails and I enjoy watching the reaction. Engagement works in two ways. And and engaged presenter is more likely to move the audience. Here are some tips on places where witty rewording will work. Is the idea or phrase something you say often, or repeat in a talk? If so, try to find a way to add some wit. Is there a place where people typically zone out that is content rather than time related? Go for clever. Find ways, every seven to ten minutes, to add a witty phrase. Mind this one. If you are robotic about it, the wit will lose force. Try and be sensitive to your audience, and that comes with time and practice. People aren't born with silver tongues, they develop them. Have you any clever ways you say the same old things? Witty ways that you talk with folks? If you do, I'd love to hear them. Please leave some comments, or send me an email.

Last week’s post set up the idea that many of those leadership lists are either incorrect or incomplete, or they’re pedaling a falsehood. It may be nicer to think that those lists are incomplete, but I think more often the case that the reason we don’t think that humor should be on the list of leadership traits is because we cling to the bad belief that humor isn’t serious, and work, above all things is serious. It’s not too hard to see why humor is so important to humor. One of the hallmarks of the funny is some sort of incongruity. In order to recognize something as funny we have to see the funny thing as out of the ordinary. We need to see the mismatch. Almost as important to recognizing the incongruity is to resolve the mismatch. Take the following joke…please. “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” This joke, generally attributed to Groucho Marx, plays on the ambiguity of the words ‘inside’ and ‘outside.’ In the set-up portion of the joke ‘outside’ is taken to refer to a sort of relationship of things in a non-spatial sense. The incongruity comes when we read ‘inside’ in the punchline and then interpret it to be a much more specific place designation—inside of the dog. We then reinterpret ‘inside’ and thereby get the joke. When we learn to see incongruities, when we see more of them, we are exercising our brain. There’s a reason we often refer to people as sharp when it comes to wit. Not only is wit indicative of intelligence, but being witty fast is further indicative of intelligence. If you want to increase your knowledge, understanding why and how jokes work is going to be a great way to boost your mental prowess. Not only are you looking for the reasons the joke works the way it does, but in so doing, you’re learning about different ways people think about and conceptualize the world. This has the added benefit of making you pay more attention to others and how they think. This is surely a good thing for a leader to do. So take some time, look around at the humor you see being used. Try to find out more about it. Push yourself to see more things in the world as incongruous. Challenge yourself to look deeply at our normal ways of understanding the world. Who knows, you may end up writing your own jokes. You’ll definitely have more fun. But you’ll also start increasing your intelligence and if those lists are to be believed, that’s an important trait to have.

Once the world passes this pandemic and begins to return to a world where there are fewer personal space restrictions and heralds the dawn of "Casual PPPE," we’re going to have to learn new ways to interact. There will be a swell of new protocols to become familiar with, implement, and of course, if you’re me, make mistakes about. We’re all going to be facing novel questions about safety, about how to interact with each other. Add to that the variety of experiences that people will have had with the corona virus and we are going to have workplaces that are at high levels of tension and productive of new types of stress. Some believe that work and life will be radically altered. I am not a futurist and I am certainly not equipped to peer into whatever the “new normal” out beyond the horizon of the flattened curve will be. I suspect that many of the other prognosticators are not as accurate as they expect. What I am sure of, is that whatever the state of the world will be when we come to it, humor is going to be needed even more to help us navigate our post pandemic world. Of course I would say this, I’m a person who has bet heavily on humor being important for all parts of life. But the research supports it. Humor helps us tolerate stress better. Not only does it make us feel that the stress or discomfort was less awful, it helps us to feel close to those around us, no matter how socially distant. While anyone may be a potential vector of disease, as they always have, more importantly they’re a vector for mirth. Sharing that joke with a friend, sending that meme along your device to theirs helps me to share that most unique of human experiences: shared humor. I’m inviting you to laugh with me, to see the humor in the world, and that’s an important. When we make mistakes, we can try and laugh at ourselves. If I can laugh at myself, I can better correct my behavior in the future. Come down too hard on yourself and another and the consequences could be detrimental. A gentle tease may do all the work you need. If you’re a person needing to lay out the new protocols, find ways to make them funny, especially if you want them to stick. Make a presentation of the new mask safety protocols. Imagine you’re a clown teaching people how to properly don a mask. What would a clown do with masks? Find clever ways to say things that are important. Use those hilarious flight attendants that do the safety announcements on airlines as an example. But do your best, where you can, to ease tense situations. If you sow the seeds of levity, laughter will be the reward. Be of good cheer as much as you can. The future is sure to be different in both good and bad ways. Stay alert to the weird outcomes of some of the new normal. There will be opportunities for some laughs there to be sure. There will also be situations that we can’t help but laugh about. Gripe about it with your friends, make fun if you need to. We’re all going to struggle with fogged up glasses when we lol, so make some jokes about it. There’s already a meme about it. Humor is going to be a tool we go to more and more, often without thinking about it. But if we do pay attention to how we use it, we can use it all the more effectively.

HI readers, it's been a busy couple weeks. As we all know, with the arrival of Covid-19 to the US and the shutting down of most aspects of our lives, I have been adjusting like everyone to the new, hopefully temporary normal. But that doesn't mean I haven't been busy. I've actually had a good bit going on. I was recently featured on a podcast with a colleague and friend, Dr. Barbi Honeycutt on using humor as a teaching tool. I also did a webinar on humor in the classroom for Magna Publications, but you have to pay, not me unfortunately, to listen. I am set to give a couple presentations in May at the Lily Teaching Conference. So all in all, it's been a rather productive few months. I'll be returning to a more regular blog schedule soon. But I just wanted to update you all with some of the work I've been doing. Stay safe and healthy out there and don't forget to laugh and have fun with those nearby and those across the screen on our virtual meetings.

Take a look around at any lists of the qualities any leader needs to have. You’ll be sure to see words like intelligence, integrity, inspiring. Lacking other suitable ‘i-words’ you’ll also find more descriptions like creative, humility, good communicator, and resilience. Some lists are at 10, others at 13 (an odd number really), and others that go all the way up to 100. I couldn’t read a list that long--wouldn't want to truth be told. And it's not because my internet attention span is so short. While many of these qualities are admirable, it’s doubtful that any one leader could ever be all those things. But more importantly, the list is incomplete and also partially false. Of course if you’re reading this you probably have guessed that what’s missing is humor, or wit, or lightheartedness. If you guessed that any of those terms were among the missing ones, then you’re spot on. Adding humor or wit to the list isn’t like adding one more to a list of 50 or 100. It’s not even close. Having a sense of humor should appear on a top 10 list, and definitely a top 20 list. Any list that misses them, any list that doesn’t have them is not just incomplete, it’s promoting a false and damaging view of leadership. Ask anyone you know, heck, ask strangers if they think they have a sense of humor. Dollars to pennies that they say yes. Ask them if they think having a sense of humor is important. Again, yes. Would you like having people say you lacked a sense of humor? I’d wager you wouldn’t enjoy being described as humorless. Lot’s of betting in this paragraph—sorry; I’m just that sure of myself here. Truth be told, you know it too. People are fine being told they lack the ability to draw, or dance. There isn’t much of a drawback to lacking them. While having those talents can often be beneficial, not having them will not bring some form of admonishment. I can’t draw at all, but I can dance. No one looks at me sideways for being bad at drawing but they surely would if I admitted I didn’t have a sense of humor. Here’s my question for you to think about. If very few people would ever admit that they lack a sense of humor, they wouldn’t like to be described as humorless, that most of us would find it insulting to be described as humorless, and most people find having a sense of humor to be something attractive in another person, why do we not value that trait in our leaders? Why is something that is so important to our normal interpersonal interactions so noticeably absent in our thoughts about leaders? Why are those lists lying by omission? I won’t provide answers yet. I’m going to give some answers in some later blogs. Things you can do while you wait, is think to see if leaders that you respect, admire, enjoy working with, etc. have a sense of humor. Was that humor valuable for that leader? How did they use it? Don’t worry too much over it, just some passing thoughts here and there. Till next time folks. Laugh often and much.

Humor Gives Back. Humor is one of those things that many people say is important because it’s useful. Or as philosophers like to say it’s instrumental value or utility. (Hey, I’m a philosopher so I got to give props to my discipline). They’re right? They’re just not right enough. Humor is often touted as a great tool for decreasing stress, helping us to persevere or overcome obstacles. Yes, humor has been shown to be very useful. It’s also something that we like and value in others. While humor is certainly helpful and useful it can be just as valuable to you the person using it. Not because it can do all those things I just mentioned, but that it’s reciprocally useful and good for you! I teach philosophy and you can probably imagine the faces of my students. When I introduce myself as a philosophy professor at parties or social gatherings, I usually get that look from the person who had and hated that class in college. I’ve given up on apologizing. I mean, Socrates was killed for practicing the craft. So, yeah, it’s true that philosophy can be off-putting. As a result, I’ve found the more humor I can use to make my class interesting, the better off the class does. Again with the usefulness. But the utility doesn’t end there. I’ve found that the more I am able to use humor effectively, the more I am able to engage students and listeners with a clever joke or witticism, the better they learn. But almost as important is that when I share humor with my audience, I enjoy those moments too. That’s the big value add that humor brings. The engagement that it creates isn’t simply for the audience, whether that be a class full of students, a roomful of listeners, or a hospital full of patients. The humor user will also feel good. It gives my ego a boost when I use humor and it’s taken well. But more than that, I enjoy the shared laughter, the shared mirth. And that is so important for me and the performance of my job. If employees won’t do as well in environments where there is little laughter. Andrew Carnegie was clear in this when he said “There is little success, where there is little laughter.” But you the teacher, the supervisor, the speaker are a part of that environment too. You are just as effected by a dour work environ as the others who work there. So when you enjoy bringing and sharing humor with your co-workers, audience, or patients, you will do better as well. The value-add is noticeable. So remember, that when you use humor it’s not just about them, it’s about you too. More importantly it’s about us. Ella Wilcox wasn’t wrong when she said “Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone.”