How Laughter & Joy Transforms the Workplace
As the old idiom goes, laughter is the best medicine. But, is laughter appropriate in the workplace?
According to A.J. Jacobs (Drop Dead Healthy), it is! “Humorous thinking has parallels to the way we should be thinking in business. It has a lot to do with creativity: taking disparate ideas and mashing them together,” he says in The Business Case for Humor from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The JumpScale team agrees wholeheartedly with this perspective, and to illuminate how humor and joy can transform your workplace, we collected some tips, tricks, and insights from our team.
What is your favorite way to bring joy to your workday?
“I am deeply grateful for my Monday morning Laughter Yoga practice,” says General Partner Daniel Roth. According to Laughter Yoga International’s founder, Dr. Madan Kataria, “if Laughter cannot solve your problems, it will definitely DISSOLVE your problems; so that you can think clearly about what to do about them.” Daniel finds this confirmed in his experience and encourages others to find routines that bring grounding and joy to their week
Folks working from home offices can find joy through the things their personal space has to offer. For Senior Advisor Valentina Yaman, family is critical. “I bring joy to my workday by taking time to play with my toddler as if I was his age,” she says. “Joy is an opportunity to be present to what is in front of me, rather than being in a busy state, chasing the next “extraordinary” moment.” Practicing joy helps her keep the impact of her work in perspective while holding close the most important things–love, family, and laughter.
Why is it important to build a joyful workplace? How have you achieved this?
General Partner Josh Knauer recommends finding unconventional ways for your team to bond and create connections outside the workplace. For example, Josh organized a weekly Friday brunch in the office kitchen at one of his previous workplaces. Employees would cook, eat, and share stories to close out the week. “I appreciated our Friday brunches because they were a great opportunity to experience colleagues in moments of sharing and joy,” he says. When teams bond and get to know each other outside of work, camaraderie and morale increase, leading to better outcomes for the organization and the people who work within it.
How do you ensure workplace humor does not devolve into bullying or harassment?
Humor can bring a lot of good to a team, but it can also be harmful if employed mindlessly. To ensure workplace humor is appropriate and positive, Senior Advisor Bonnie Coberly recommends making sure there are agreements on acceptable humor. If someone feels humor has crossed a line, the steps they can take to report the harmful behavior should also be clear. Organizations have all sorts of policies around workplace culture, and the kinds of conduct that are OK and humor should be no different.
How can you use humor to increase the emotional safety of a team?
Of course, building emotional safety is complicated, but Senior Advisor Jordan Luftig has a few insights. First, he recommends exploring existing rules and policies about what is in bounds and out-of-bounds for speech and other actions within your organization. Take some time to consider your organization’s culture (norms, values, worldviews, modes of communication, etc.) and social systems (rules, policies, technologies of communication, etc.) and how humor fits within those pre-established boundaries.
Jordan also says that perhaps most critically, “each individual should be empowered to do their own inner work to be the best, most healthy and resilient vessels for receiving and expressing humor.” Thoughtful, compassionate people will find thoughtful, compassionate ways to bring joy and fun to a team.
In Conclusion
"Creating joy in the workplace guarantees creativity through the roof. When people feel safe, they invest in their team and give their best without getting caught up in fears of looking bad, failure, or most importantly[,] the need to Control. When we laugh on purpose, without the need for a humorous stimulus, we even the playing field, creating a culture of listening and Empathy. This joy builds connection and creates the space for a future vision that everyone can get behind," says Simeon Dawrick Birnbaum, Laughter Coach and Founder of JYFL living. We hope you feel inspired to facilitate more moments of laughter and joy for yourself and your team. To learn more about this topic, check out:
How to Be Funny at Work from Harvard Business Review
These are the dangers of using humor in the workplace from Fast Company
Who You Should Make Fun of At Work: Work in 60 Seconds from Adam Grant
Do you have ideas to share about workplace humor? Let us know at together@wejumpscale.com.