Review
“A smart, funny, brilliant book on how to be smart about being funny, brilliantly. And I’m not just saying that because they say I am smart, funny, and brilliant in it. Buy it.”—Sarah Cooper, comedian and author of 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings
“I’ve learned (often the hard way) that the best way to be taken seriously is to not take yourself too seriously. My teams are always at their best when approaching problems with levity, which entails both humility and optimism and always engenders trust. Plus, it’s more fun—like this book!”—Eric Schmidt, former CEO and executive chair of Google (Alphabet)
“Humor is an act of social courage that, when used correctly, has a transformative effect. Humor, Seriously gives us the tools we need to deploy humor expertly in any environment.”—Susan Cain, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Quiet
“If you think your workplace would work better if everyone laughed more, this is your playbook.”—Chip Heath, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Moments
“Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas make a scientific case for the importance of humor and show that it’s an incredible way to connect with customers and build culture. This book will help anyone embrace the power of laughter.”—Sara Blakley, founder and CEO of Spanx
“A sharp, incisive, and genuinely funny read that translates knowledge of the world of comedy to tools that actually work in the world of business.”—Anne Libera, director of comedy studies at The Second City
“Business is serious and the world is serious, especially right now. That means we need the ideas described in Humor, Seriously even more than ever. Not because levity and humor are ways to relieve the pressure of serious times, although they are, but because they unlock our humanity in the moments where we most need it.”—Tim Brown, chair of IDEO and author of Change by Design
“Eye-opening, hilarious, and absolutely original, Humor, Seriously will change the way you think on the job, about the world, and in your life.”—Leslie Blodgett, founder and former CEO of Bare Escentuals
“Fresh, profound, and consistently entertaining. I know the words ‘evidence-based’ don’t immediately connote riotous laughter, but Aaker and Bagdonas bring some irresistibly compelling science to the art and application of humor.”—Kelly Leonard, executive vice president of The Second City
“Of all the known ways to ruin humor, the most common start with the words ‘research,’ ‘analyze,’ and ‘professor.’ The bad news is that this book features all of those words. Prominently. The good news is that against all odds, you’ll actually have fun reading it.”—Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take, and host of the TED podcast WorkLife
“In this eye-opening, important and utterly enjoyable book, Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas use science to explain how humor at work (and in life) helps alleviate stress, anxiety, and burnout. Come for the humor, stay for the insights.”—Arianna Huffington, co-founder of The Huffington Post and CEO of Thrive Global
About the Author
Dr. Jennifer Aaker is the General Atlantic Professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a leading expert on how purpose and meaning shape individual choices and how technology can positively impact human well-being and company growth. Her work has been widely published in leading scientific journals, and featured in The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and Science. A recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award, and MBA Professor of the Year, Aaker counts winning a dance-off in the early 1980s among her greatest feats.
Naomi Bagdonas is a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and an executive coach. She facilitates interactive sessions for leaders, Fortune 100 companies, and nonprofits and coaches executives and celebrities for appearances on shows ranging from Saturday Night Live to Today. Formerly trained at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, Bagdonas performs at comedy venues and teaches improv in San Francisco’s county jail. Her constant stream of foster dogs describe her as gullible and full of treats.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1
The Humor Cliff
“Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.”—Mark Twain
It’s the first day of spring quarter at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Fifty students excitedly file into a lecture hall, a few still wondering whether the course they’ve registered for is an elaborate joke played by the administration. “Humor: Serious Business” is about to begin.
Whiteboards line the walls; all the chairs and tables have wheels, for easy rearranging. It’s a setting that’s ideal for workshopping and terrible for napping. Jennifer, in her self-appointed role as DJ, has David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel” blasting. Naomi has a clip from SNL cued up to kick off the lecture.
And yet trepidation hangs heavy in the air.
Before class begins each semester, we have our students complete a “Humor Audit,” a self-reflection exercise / terrifyingly personal quiz about how they use humor in their lives. It includes questions like “Who or what makes you laugh the most in your life?” and “Who do you feel the funniest around?” and “Please submit complete documentation of your income, expenses, and assets for the previous fiscal year.”
So it’s understandable that the students feel spooked: A sense of humor is like a muscle—it atrophies without regular use. Unfortunately, we find that in most students and executives we start working with, atrophy abounds. Just look at these responses to the question “When was the last time you really laughed?”:
“I honestly can’t remember. Is that terrible?”
“I’ve been thinking and am drawing a blank! I know I laugh. Or at least I thought I did, which now I’m questioning . . .”
“On Tuesday, I did not laugh once. Not once. Who knew a class about humor could be so depressing?”
The good and bad news about these responses is that our students are not alone. And it’s not Tuesday.
The Humor Cliff
The collective loss of our sense of humor is a serious problem afflicting people and organizations globally. We’re all going over the humor cliff together, tumbling down into the abyss of solemnity below.
At the bottom of that abyss we’re joined by the majority of 1.4 million survey respondents in 166 countries who revealed in this Gallup poll that the frequency with which we laugh or smile each day starts to plummet around age twenty-three.
To some extent, this pattern makes sense. As kids, we laugh all the time. The average four-year-old laughs as many as three hundred times per day. (The average forty-year-old, by comparison, laughs three hundred times every two and a half months.) Then we grow up, enter the workforce, and suddenly become “serious and important people,” trading laughter for ties and pantsuits.
Before long, we lose levity entirely in a sea of bottom lines, slide decks, and mind-numbing conference calls. Our sense of play is repressed by a dizzyingly complex and dynamic professional environment, full of social land mines that are difficult to gauge and feel safer to avoid. As a result, most of us choose to keep our interactions sterile, measured, and professional; we go to work each day and leave our sense of humor—and so much more of ourselves—at the door.
This response signals a fundamental misunderstanding about how to work—how to solve important problems, how to conduct ourselves, and how to be successful.
We don’t need more “professionalism” in our workplaces. Instead, we need more of ourselves, and more human connection—especially as in-person meetings are replaced by video chats and more relationships are sustained entirely by email. Often, all it takes is a hint of levity to shift a moment, or a relationship, from transactional and robotic to relational and authentic.
So what’s holding us back?
Our research reveals four common misperceptions—or, as we like to call them:
The Four Deadly Humor Myths
After we surveyed more than seven hundred people across a wide range of industries and levels about what holds them back from using humor at work, four themes emerged, each rooted in a myth that needs debunking. It’s MythBusters, Business Edition.
The Serious Business Myth
A large portion of our respondents reported believing that humor simply has no place amid serious work.
Early in our careers, this myth often stems from insecurity about our lack of experience. (This is before we’re experienced enough to know nobody really knows anything.) We worry about harming our credibility and not being taken seriously.
Yet according to surveys of hundreds of executive leaders conducted by Robert Half International and Hodge-Cronin & Associates, 98 percent reported preferring employees with a sense of humor, while 84 percent believed employees with a sense of humor do better work. And humor affects not just how our leaders perceive us, but also how our peers do: Showing our sense of humor can make our peers more likely to attribute higher status to us and to vote us into leadership roles.
As we rise through the ranks in our careers, this misconception evolves. With greater status comes greater scrutiny; when we find ourselves on progressively bigger stages, we feel pressure to signal even more professionalism and “seriousness” to shareholders, customers, and colleagues. What’s more, leaders report that the status differential makes it harder to show up as their authentic selves while also fulfilling the responsibilities of their public role.
But now more than ever, they need to do both.
Today’s leaders are facing a crisis of trust; nearly half of employees cite their lack of trust in leadership as the single biggest issue impacting their work performance.
What’s more, when employees are asked what characteristics inspire trust in a leader, the responses that rise to the top—like “knowing the obstacles the leader overcame” and “speaks like a regular person”—tell a consistent story: Today’s employees yearn for more authentic, human leaders. Aspirational, yes, but also flawed. Humor is a powerful leadership strategy to humanize oneself to employees, break down barriers, and balance authority with approachability. (So powerful in fact that we wrote an entire chapter about it—damn.) As one example, leaders who use self-deprecating humor are rated higher on measures of both trustworthiness and leadership ability by their employees. While the bosses in question would probably downplay those gains with self-deprecating humor, they’re very real.
And beyond the signals we send to our employees, a culture that balances serious work with levity and play can actually improve team performance. In a study involving more than fifty teams, researchers analyzed prerecorded team meetings as well as supervisors’ ratings of team performance, both immediately and again two years later. The presence of humor in team interactions predicted more functional communication and higher team performance both in the moment and over time. Playful cultures allow teams to thrive, even (and especially) when the stakes are high and the times are hard.
Of course, we shouldn’t go for funny all the time—that would be exhausting (and counterproductive). But we’ve swung so far in the other direction that our businesses thirst for it. The secret to success for many of the brilliant executives featured in this book is their ability to strike a delicate balance between gravity and levity; much like hot fudge and ice cream, each enhances the other. And both make something (your business prospects and glycemic index, respectively) rise precipitously.
And if that adorable balloon heroically balancing an anchor isn’t convincing enough, then let’s pass the mic to President Eisenhower, who once said “A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.”
If Dwight David Eisenhower, the second-least naturally funny president after Franklin Pierce, thought humor was necessary to win wars, build highways, and warn against the military-industrial complex, then you better learn to use it, too.
