have you ever thought to yourself that
the world of work has become far too
serious like can you remember when you
were a kid a little kid how much you
used to laugh your research actually
shows that toddlers these little kids
like two three years old they laugh 300
times a day and if I was to ask you do
you guys how many times a day do you
think that the typical adult laughs at
work what would you get come on someone
give me a guess how many times five are
you German
no I’ll ask more than five more than
five come on thirty fifty no they’re
average a global average for the number
of times that an adult
laughs each day at work is sixteen so we
go from 300 times a day to 16 times a
day so work is clearly doing something
to depress us all right so this actually
said the other fact right think about
work days versus weekends how many more
times do you think we laugh on the
weekends versus the work days what would
you guess twice as many four times as
many so you know this idea that work
kind of brings us down started to
intrigue me and my colleague Gabor
George birth and we started doing
research on humor in the workplace and
what I’d actually like to share with
with all of you today is kind of what
we’ve discovered and what we’ve
discovered is that humor pay it’s not
just about being funny
it’s about the fact that humor can have
a positive impact in the workplace so
what you’re going to actually do in the
next ten minutes you’re all going to be
learn all going to learn to become what
we call stand-up strategists does that
sound exciting to you
can you show a little bit more
enthusiasm please no that’s kind of next
10 minutes is probably gonna be the best
10 minutes of your life with your
clothes on yeah okay all right so let me
let me start with the first idea okay
now the first idea is this one that
laughter and fun it creates a sense of
bonding and empathy between people now
why is this important
because if you’re in a situation where
you want collaboration you want openness
you want knowledge sharing that’s very
very important all right so what all of
you need to stand up strategists is you
need a repertoire of jokes are you good
at this film everything okay so what I’m
gonna do I’m gonna give you I’m gonna
share with you the world’s best joke now
this is I didn’t come up with this job I
found this joke in a research paper on
what is called universal humor so this
is a joke that works across countries
languages and cultures this is this is
the world’s best joke all right are you
really not now by the way if you don’t
laugh at this joke you’ve got a serious
problem okay so here’s the joke so a
young lady young mother she steps onto a
bus and she’s carrying her infant baby
and as she steps up onto the bus the bus
driver looks down at the baby and says
oh my that’s the ugliest child I’ve ever
seen you can mention the mother she
snatches the ticket she’s very upset and
she rushes to the back of the bus and as
she sits down there’s an elderly kindly
old Italian man you know sitting there
and he looks at her he says Maya darling
what’s wrong with you you look a very
upset and she says the bus driver she
just offended me terribly and your man
says but darling this is a public bus
this is a public service you should go
to the bus driver and you give her a
piece of your mind and while you do that
okay oh yeah but listen you don’t have
to remember this joke because what do
all of you have in your pocket what all
of you have in your pocket is a mobile
phone all you need to do is before
working walking into that meeting with
your colleagues your friends is take out
your phone and Google the world’s best
you know 100 short jokes jokes were your
fingertips okay but it’s not just about
jobs it’s also about an attitude now
this guy this guy on the left is a Linda
Hauser and he’s the CEO of a deco group
and he’s a funny guy and I was recently
at an event with a deco where he was on
stage with this young guy Edie
now attacker has this this intern
program it’s called CEO of the month and
this young intern shadow is the CEO for
a period of four weeks and it was
explaining to the audience a couple
hundred people in the audience from a
deco he was explaining how in the last
eight days he and alarm had visited 8
different countries and he said to the
audience the only thing I don’t know
about alarm is the color of his pajamas
and there was little murmur of laughter
and as quick as a flash alarm turned to
Ada and said well that’s good edie
because I don’t wear any pajamas can you
picture your boss naked it’s a scary
thought isn’t it you know but the fact
was that that then set the scene and
reflected his humility and openness and
it created this bonding within the group
that he was talking to so this is
fabulous right ok so the next thing we
want to talk about is coping you know
business can be really stressful so what
is humor good for Hugh is actually good
for reducing stress and studies
demonstrate that individuals and groups
with high levels of humor cope with
stress the stress of deadlines and
pressure better than individual group
and groups who have low levels of humor
ok so this becomes becomes very very
important ok now so let me give an
example of this so I was in Copenhagen
this week and I met I met Jakob Forum
and Jakob works with Carlsberg and at
the moment he’s involved with a very
very stressful IT transformation program
so his team are really straight
style and he was sensing this so what
did he do this just he told me this just
this way he went to a toy store
he bought a nerf gun he walked into the
most stressed out group of his IT
employees he crept along that or along
the floor jumped up and shot the guy in
the back of the head with a nerf that
can you imagine that you’re sitting at
your desk working away and then suddenly
the boss jumps up and shoot you in the
eyeball with a nerf but he said the
whole department just cracked up
laughing you know I’m the guy of course
was a little bit shocked at first and he
started laughing too right
so reduce stress of people bring fun and
frivolity but you have to be careful
this is Marissa Mayer and she was the
CEO of Yahoo and at a very very
difficult time I’m for Yahoo the company
was losing money they were firing
employees people were losing their jobs
she went to an employee gathering and
she walked into the gathering a couple
of hundred people and she said everyone
relax
I’m not here to announce layoffs this
hahaha it’s not funny
put yourself in the shoes of those
people whose colleagues have been fired
so you have to be very very careful with
sarcasm with cynicism in these kind of
situations now the other thing cost you
don’t do if you don’t do inappropriate
humor there is no place in today’s world
for sexism and racism you’re one of the
MDS one of the main he directly
interviewed you know what he said to me
he said Jaime in today’s business world
inappropriate humor is like farting in
an elevator it’s wrong on so many
different levels and is absolutely right
he’s absolutely there’s no room for that
okay so keep the humor positive because
you want to energize people you want to
connect people okay now there’s
something else here and it’s about
change you know when you want change to
happen it’s all about communication
because you want people to remember the
message you want to make the message is
portable people are sometimes the
biggest reason that people resist change
is because of fear so if you can bring
some humor into that communication of
strategy it helps people now a great
example of this is a guy called Terry
Davis that Terry Davis is an Australian
and he what was the CEO of coca-cola
amitiel in Australia and you know it was
again the company was going through a
very difficult period they were losing
market share and what he felt was that
the organisation need much more of a
focus on performance results orientation
so he gathered together his top sales
people from across the country they came
to a venue just like this one about the
number of people we have here and he
waited until they were all seated then
he came up onto the stage and as he came
up into the stage he said everyone
please stand up so everyone stood up
they all stood up and he said now look
under your seats so all of the people in
the audience started looking under their
seats and what was taped under every
single seat was a was a $2 coin straight
into dollar coin so they all started
pulling out his money and after everyone
had pulled out the money Terry said to
them look you see folks if you just get
off your asses and look for
you will find revenues fantastic you
know now what do you think happened by
the way what do you think happened that
message went viral around the
organization because it was so funny it
was so witty people were sharing it with
each other it went viral it became a
legend within the company
therefore what happened is that strategy
became viral it wasn’t communicated on
PowerPoint slides or it was it was told
through stories okay so this can be very
very powerful now the other the other
area here and probably the most
important one is creativity because what
does humor do humor reduces your
physical and cognitive tension it
relaxes your brain so it allows but in
particular the frontal cortex to open
and that’s your imagination engine so by
helping people to laugh to help them
have fun you’re actually helping them to
be better at creativity at ideation at
brainstorming right now of course a guy
who’s absolutely aware of this is Elon
Musk you know an Elon Musk is renowned
for his sense of humor I mean you all
know what this guy did recently right he
strapped a sports car to a rocket and
shot it into space why did he do that
because it was fun can you see what it
says on the GPS don’t panic you know
what he’s talking about
so the latest thing is Elon Musk is now
talking about in the factory in Fremont
in the US the Tesla factory to get
people from one side of the plant to the
other they’re talking about installing a
fully functioning rollercoaster so you
would actually get in the roller-coaster
you would do a few corkscrews a few
loop-de-loops and you’d arrive at your
meeting some people might throw up on
the way okay but you know it’s gonna
bring a whole different energy isn’t it
could you imagine if they did that at
your office loop-the-loops and stuff I
mean it’s fantastic right so that’s
about the fun and the frivolity so you
know what’s what’s what’s my message to
you unlock your lights become a stand up
strategist and as a very wise leader
once said
may the fast be with you thank you very
much [Applause]
the world of work has become far too
serious like can you remember when you
were a kid a little kid how much you
used to laugh your research actually
shows that toddlers these little kids
like two three years old they laugh 300
times a day and if I was to ask you do
you guys how many times a day do you
think that the typical adult laughs at
work what would you get come on someone
give me a guess how many times five are
you German
no I’ll ask more than five more than
five come on thirty fifty no they’re
average a global average for the number
of times that an adult
laughs each day at work is sixteen so we
go from 300 times a day to 16 times a
day so work is clearly doing something
to depress us all right so this actually
said the other fact right think about
work days versus weekends how many more
times do you think we laugh on the
weekends versus the work days what would
you guess twice as many four times as
many so you know this idea that work
kind of brings us down started to
intrigue me and my colleague Gabor
George birth and we started doing
research on humor in the workplace and
what I’d actually like to share with
with all of you today is kind of what
we’ve discovered and what we’ve
discovered is that humor pay it’s not
just about being funny
it’s about the fact that humor can have
a positive impact in the workplace so
what you’re going to actually do in the
next ten minutes you’re all going to be
learn all going to learn to become what
we call stand-up strategists does that
sound exciting to you
can you show a little bit more
enthusiasm please no that’s kind of next
10 minutes is probably gonna be the best
10 minutes of your life with your
clothes on yeah okay all right so let me
let me start with the first idea okay
now the first idea is this one that
laughter and fun it creates a sense of
bonding and empathy between people now
why is this important
because if you’re in a situation where
you want collaboration you want openness
you want knowledge sharing that’s very
very important all right so what all of
you need to stand up strategists is you
need a repertoire of jokes are you good
at this film everything okay so what I’m
gonna do I’m gonna give you I’m gonna
share with you the world’s best joke now
this is I didn’t come up with this job I
found this joke in a research paper on
what is called universal humor so this
is a joke that works across countries
languages and cultures this is this is
the world’s best joke all right are you
really not now by the way if you don’t
laugh at this joke you’ve got a serious
problem okay so here’s the joke so a
young lady young mother she steps onto a
bus and she’s carrying her infant baby
and as she steps up onto the bus the bus
driver looks down at the baby and says
oh my that’s the ugliest child I’ve ever
seen you can mention the mother she
snatches the ticket she’s very upset and
she rushes to the back of the bus and as
she sits down there’s an elderly kindly
old Italian man you know sitting there
and he looks at her he says Maya darling
what’s wrong with you you look a very
upset and she says the bus driver she
just offended me terribly and your man
says but darling this is a public bus
this is a public service you should go
to the bus driver and you give her a
piece of your mind and while you do that
okay oh yeah but listen you don’t have
to remember this joke because what do
all of you have in your pocket what all
of you have in your pocket is a mobile
phone all you need to do is before
working walking into that meeting with
your colleagues your friends is take out
your phone and Google the world’s best
you know 100 short jokes jokes were your
fingertips okay but it’s not just about
jobs it’s also about an attitude now
this guy this guy on the left is a Linda
Hauser and he’s the CEO of a deco group
and he’s a funny guy and I was recently
at an event with a deco where he was on
stage with this young guy Edie
now attacker has this this intern
program it’s called CEO of the month and
this young intern shadow is the CEO for
a period of four weeks and it was
explaining to the audience a couple
hundred people in the audience from a
deco he was explaining how in the last
eight days he and alarm had visited 8
different countries and he said to the
audience the only thing I don’t know
about alarm is the color of his pajamas
and there was little murmur of laughter
and as quick as a flash alarm turned to
Ada and said well that’s good edie
because I don’t wear any pajamas can you
picture your boss naked it’s a scary
thought isn’t it you know but the fact
was that that then set the scene and
reflected his humility and openness and
it created this bonding within the group
that he was talking to so this is
fabulous right ok so the next thing we
want to talk about is coping you know
business can be really stressful so what
is humor good for Hugh is actually good
for reducing stress and studies
demonstrate that individuals and groups
with high levels of humor cope with
stress the stress of deadlines and
pressure better than individual group
and groups who have low levels of humor
ok so this becomes becomes very very
important ok now so let me give an
example of this so I was in Copenhagen
this week and I met I met Jakob Forum
and Jakob works with Carlsberg and at
the moment he’s involved with a very
very stressful IT transformation program
so his team are really straight
style and he was sensing this so what
did he do this just he told me this just
this way he went to a toy store
he bought a nerf gun he walked into the
most stressed out group of his IT
employees he crept along that or along
the floor jumped up and shot the guy in
the back of the head with a nerf that
can you imagine that you’re sitting at
your desk working away and then suddenly
the boss jumps up and shoot you in the
eyeball with a nerf but he said the
whole department just cracked up
laughing you know I’m the guy of course
was a little bit shocked at first and he
started laughing too right
so reduce stress of people bring fun and
frivolity but you have to be careful
this is Marissa Mayer and she was the
CEO of Yahoo and at a very very
difficult time I’m for Yahoo the company
was losing money they were firing
employees people were losing their jobs
she went to an employee gathering and
she walked into the gathering a couple
of hundred people and she said everyone
relax
I’m not here to announce layoffs this
hahaha it’s not funny
put yourself in the shoes of those
people whose colleagues have been fired
so you have to be very very careful with
sarcasm with cynicism in these kind of
situations now the other thing cost you
don’t do if you don’t do inappropriate
humor there is no place in today’s world
for sexism and racism you’re one of the
MDS one of the main he directly
interviewed you know what he said to me
he said Jaime in today’s business world
inappropriate humor is like farting in
an elevator it’s wrong on so many
different levels and is absolutely right
he’s absolutely there’s no room for that
okay so keep the humor positive because
you want to energize people you want to
connect people okay now there’s
something else here and it’s about
change you know when you want change to
happen it’s all about communication
because you want people to remember the
message you want to make the message is
portable people are sometimes the
biggest reason that people resist change
is because of fear so if you can bring
some humor into that communication of
strategy it helps people now a great
example of this is a guy called Terry
Davis that Terry Davis is an Australian
and he what was the CEO of coca-cola
amitiel in Australia and you know it was
again the company was going through a
very difficult period they were losing
market share and what he felt was that
the organisation need much more of a
focus on performance results orientation
so he gathered together his top sales
people from across the country they came
to a venue just like this one about the
number of people we have here and he
waited until they were all seated then
he came up onto the stage and as he came
up into the stage he said everyone
please stand up so everyone stood up
they all stood up and he said now look
under your seats so all of the people in
the audience started looking under their
seats and what was taped under every
single seat was a was a $2 coin straight
into dollar coin so they all started
pulling out his money and after everyone
had pulled out the money Terry said to
them look you see folks if you just get
off your asses and look for
you will find revenues fantastic you
know now what do you think happened by
the way what do you think happened that
message went viral around the
organization because it was so funny it
was so witty people were sharing it with
each other it went viral it became a
legend within the company
therefore what happened is that strategy
became viral it wasn’t communicated on
PowerPoint slides or it was it was told
through stories okay so this can be very
very powerful now the other the other
area here and probably the most
important one is creativity because what
does humor do humor reduces your
physical and cognitive tension it
relaxes your brain so it allows but in
particular the frontal cortex to open
and that’s your imagination engine so by
helping people to laugh to help them
have fun you’re actually helping them to
be better at creativity at ideation at
brainstorming right now of course a guy
who’s absolutely aware of this is Elon
Musk you know an Elon Musk is renowned
for his sense of humor I mean you all
know what this guy did recently right he
strapped a sports car to a rocket and
shot it into space why did he do that
because it was fun can you see what it
says on the GPS don’t panic you know
what he’s talking about
so the latest thing is Elon Musk is now
talking about in the factory in Fremont
in the US the Tesla factory to get
people from one side of the plant to the
other they’re talking about installing a
fully functioning rollercoaster so you
would actually get in the roller-coaster
you would do a few corkscrews a few
loop-de-loops and you’d arrive at your
meeting some people might throw up on
the way okay but you know it’s gonna
bring a whole different energy isn’t it
could you imagine if they did that at
your office loop-the-loops and stuff I
mean it’s fantastic right so that’s
about the fun and the frivolity so you
know what’s what’s what’s my message to
you unlock your lights become a stand up
strategist and as a very wise leader
once said
may the fast be with you thank you very
much [Applause]
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