Humor Drives Profits: The Creativity – Innovation Connection

Humor is good business. In fact, it’s critical to the creative, innovative process that drives strategic advantage in the marketplace. Humor is no longer a “nice to have” – it’s a competitive necessity. Success demands constant market innovation. Moreover, the most important motivation for employees isn’t money. Employees want to be valued and challenged at work. This means being able to use their creative talents in ways that allow them – and the business – to grow.

Humor and Creativity

Humor allows open, fluid dynamics to flourish. This fluidity creates innovative environments. But humor is defined too narrowly by most companies. Yes, humor is about jokes, fun events and competitive jibes, but this is only part of what humor is. Consequently, employees and bosses often do not see the connection between humor and their productivity. Without awareness of this critical relationship, employees and corporate culture cannot change. Let’s redefine humor as the ability to play. During creative play, people experience “flow time” – that uninterrupted time where productivity is at its peak and time goes by effortlessly. People need corporate encouraged playtime – innovation depends on it.

Play allows the brain to think without restrictions, to imagine outside of the box. Remember as kids, we brainstormed all kinds of ideas for costumes, imaginary friends, and games without restrictive limits? As adults we censor our play selves. Humor is openness to the world of possibilities. The creative process is fun and allows the best ideas to surface to the top. When you indulge the “humor brain” you are tapping into the creative center of the brain and generating the best quality ideas. It’s elegant biology, really.

Most people have the capacity to innovate. So why don’t they? The answer is both simple and complex: fear and lack of encouragement. Additionally, a fixation on outcomes rather than the creative process fails to reward risk-taking itself. Negative, toxic environments will also kill creative play and innovation – fast!

The 3M Factor: Walking the Talk

3M Corporation has become an innovation icon for over a century. Key to its success is its unwavering commitment to innovation: “Mistakes will be made (by giving people freedom to act autonomously), but the mistakes are not as serious in the long run as the mistakes management will make if it is dictatorial about how people do their jobs. Management that is destructively critical when mistakes are made kills initiative and it is essential that we have many people with initiative to continue to grow” (3M website).

One of several management practices that fosters this culture of innovation is “the 15 percent rule.” Under this rule, people spend 15% of their week on individual creative pursuits. This encourages people to take creative risks without fear of repercussions. Moreover, innovation is the impetus behind its profitability: 30% of 3M’s profits come from products that are less than 4 years old at any given time.

Innovation Audit

Below are 12 key components critical to a thriving innovative culture. How is your company doing?

• Playfulness: Is it OK to have fun and to brainstorm? Are people over-stressed?
• Attitude: How is the general attitude of most people? Optimistic? Pessimistic?
• Humor: Is humor appropriate or not? Inappropriate or morose humor is a red flag.
• Risk-taking: What happens when people fail? Is it a culture of blame? Who gets credit for ideas?
• Autonomy: Do employees have some autonomy in how they go about doing their jobs?
• Trust: Does the environment foster interpersonal trust or competition for too few resources?
• Reward: How are people rewarded? Overall company goals, team goals or on individual objectives?
• Commitment: Do people sense genuine commitment from executives to personnel growth?
• Congruence: Do executives live the behavior extolled on mission statements, coffee mugs, and t-shirts?
• Conflict: How is conflict managed during disagreements with others? Bosses? Does it get personal?
• Resources: Does the company actively support and fund great ideas no matter where they originate?
• Compensation: Are people compensated largely for company performance or individual performance?

Now What? What Companies Can Do To Effect Change

While a company cannot become creative overnight, there are several things that bosses and employees can do to regenerate their play muscles. And while some methods require little effort to implement, they do require changes in the corporate mindset. That takes time and commitment from executives and employees.

First, companies must embrace the value of creativity as a process – not as an outcome. Edison failed to create a working light bulb in his first 9,999 tries. When asked about his “failures,” he responded, “I get to go back and play some more.” Edison recognized the value of the creative process itself as the precursor to innovation. If the corporate focus is on the outcome (success vs. failure), the lesson and resulting creative growth are missed. The very act of engagement trains us how to think creatively. That’s invaluable.

Second, play and creativity should be integral to the productive culture. Introduce more brainstorming games into meetings, for example. Cultural values are handed top-down. If the boss doesn’t believe in the value of play as a creative process, there is little chance the concept will make it down the food chain. People need to see that their bosses not only sanction the behavior, but also actively encourage it by creating support for it. If not, playtime becomes nothing more than ‘management speak.’ There’s a reason Dilbert skyrocketed to fame! This is lethal because it erodes trust and productivity.

Another way to introduce play is to make brainstorming sessions visually creative using storyboarding and storytelling to map out a vision. Another variation includes bringing improvisation exercises into creative sessions. Improvisation reinforces spontaneity – allowing humor and creative energies to flow uninhibited.

Third, align incentives to support the activity through measured management objectives. No one wants to test a theory based on mug quotations – it’s like walking a tightrope without a net. Build incentives into the process and people will take calculated risks toward innovation. One way to do this is to allow people a certain number of hours each week to be spent in a creative way on something work-related – similar to 3M’s “15 percent rule.” Creative freedom will engender both trust and innovative solutions that benefit the company. Reward innovation with kudos, acknowledgements, and formal peer recognition when it happens or it won’t catch on. This doesn’t necessarily mean money. Tie recognition to something other than ideas that are selected. Never blame people for failure of ideas. The backlash will be a failure to generate any new ideas. Mistrust hurts employee morale and that hurts innovation.

Another important approach is to encourage play by promoting group cooperation rather than inter-group competition. Aligning pay to new product ideas generated and vetted regardless of where they originate is one way to accomplish this. Innovation teams can help, but be careful of team “groupthink.” Balance this tendency by allowing people individual time for play and then give them time to vet ideas as a team.

Finally, managers must make productive playtime a consistent part of thought leadership and strategic planning. This institutionalizes the value of the creative process in innovation.

By doing these things, humor can become vital parts of an innovative, successful corporate culture.

______________________________________________________________________________________

By Kathy Klotz-Guest, MA, MBA. Founder of Powerfully Funny (www.powerfullyfunny.com), Kathy’s mission is to help individuals and organizations use humor to drive business results! She combines 14 years of strategic marketing with a background in sketch comedy. Find out how to add the innovative power of humor to your company: Call 408.578.8040 or email kathy@powerfullyfunny.com.

Laughing at the teacher will be encouraged during a new summer workshop offered through Training and Organizational Development, Using Humor in Your Presentations (HRD 067). The 4-hour-long morning workshop will be taught June 29 by Kathy Klotz-Guest of the Humor Group, a company that teaches corporations and institutions to use humor as a leadership tool.

Read complete article here

By Kathy Klotz on Jul 26th, 2007 | In NewCommentary, On Politics

As pundits rightly recognize, The YouTube Democratic presidential debate on Monday, July 23rd was important for a number of reasons. It was an experimental format. The use of new media expanded participation in the form of questions from a wider cross-section of America, including younger voters who finally see candidates engaging them with conversational tools that speak to their generation. If this debate did nothing else but widen participation and interest in the political process among younger voters, than it added value.

However, one of the most important elements of this debate was levity and I take levity very seriously. There was levity in the way questions were asked, in the interchange with Anderson Cooper, in candidates answers, and in ways the candidates often interacted with each other. Of course, questions were often wrapped in silly preludes a fact that primed the levity pump. Despite the goofy nature of some of the video questions, however, many of the issues raised were quite (and appropriately) serious.

Precisely because this format was more experimental, the flow was more organic than in the June New Hampshire Democratic presidential debate. Sure, candidates still evaded direct answers at times and fell back on talking points when pressed, yet, this more fluid format created moments of surprise, humor, personal emotion, and a few instances where debaters were caught off-guard. It is in these rare, relaxed and even light moments that we see the more human side of candidates even if only for a short time.

Levity benefits candidates, voters and CNN. Levity is about more than just entertainment, although there’s something to be said for that, too. For all the talk of citizen journalism, CNN wasn’t ready to yield control CNN moderated the format, chose the videos, and even erred perhaps a bit on the side of entertainment to attract younger viewers to the debates and, of course, to CNN. Even straight-laced Anderson Cooper, CNN’s moderating journalist, got in on the funny act because the format made it easy to do so. Good for you, Anderson. You and CNN needed it. So did the debate.

Levity provides voters with opportunities to see more “real” sides of candidates their guffaws, their humor and, yes, even their ability to laugh at themselves, at the things we laugh at, and at each other. Humor makes candidates likeable and that can translate into political capital at the polls. We also love when they laugh at the same things we do it validates us, our opinions, and makes candidates appear to be “one of us.” Policies and platforms aside, many of us either like a candidate or not based on how they come across.

Levity enables voters to evaluate the whole person not just a talking head, or data sheet of ideologies. At the end of the day, we’re voting for a person, and a personality is part of the package. How do they handle the stress of an unanticipated question, how do they handle rebuttals, how do they handle the tough questions? Are they evasive, to the point, or are they pedantic and rambling (think 2004 Democratic presidential candidate)? It matters.

Comedian Al Franken, who has written for Gore and Hillary Clinton, put it this way: “Americans don’t want their President or senators to be the funniest person in the world. They just want to see that their President has a sense of humor and is a human being.” Humor is about being someone voters can relate to, and lightening up can help.

While too much humor is distracting, an overly serious candidate alienates viewers. Al Gore could have used this advice during the 2000 debate debacle (debate-gate) where he sighed, walked over to Bush while Bush was talking, and rolled his eyes. It was THAT bad. Where were you on that one, Franken?! Earlier this year, one pundit noted after Gore’s receipt of an Oscar for his documentary, Inconvenient Truth,“it’s the first time that a statue has received a statue. Ouch. Still, levity works because it contains elements of truth, no matter how painful. And truth is a virtue voters don’t often see in politicians.

Below are some of my favorite funny highlights from Monday’s debate:

* Edwards comment on Clinton’s pink jacket (catty, funny, and innocuous nice!), “I like Hillary, but I’m just not sure about that jacket!
* Kucinich’s comment that it was appropriate that there was no candidate to the left of him onstage and Anderson Cooper’s great comeback that it would be hard to find somebody that far left. Touch, Anderson.
* Biden commented that the best thing about Kucinich was his wife (I saw her as the camera panned. He wasn’t kidding. She’s pretty and towers over her husband, as I noticed at the end of the debate when she stood next to him. That’s not hard to do).
* The question submitted by two hillbilly-looking comedians from Tennessee on whether Al Gore’s constant media attention caused hurt feelings among the candidates and Biden’s repartee to the silly video, “I think Tennessee just got its feelings hurt.
* The silly “snowman” asking a serious question on global warming
* The singing, guitar-playing user that asked about all the taxes he’s saddled with even on his guitar.
* Hillary responded to a question on the Bush and Clinton dynasties by saying “Yes, I agree, Bush should never have been elected. No mention of Bill.
* The stunned, deer-in-headlights look on all the candidates faces when asked if they arrived at the event via private jets. Seriously busted, the candidates looked at each other as if to say, “You go first! While this levity was more incriminating than helpful to the candidates, it spoke volumes to the voters and the point was made.

Yet, despite important and beneficial levity surrounding some important questions, body language and poise still matter especially on TV. Didn’t we learn that in school watching old videos of the 1960 debate between Nixon and Kennedy?

Someone forgot to tell Mike Gravel, former Senator of Alaska. Despite some right-on-the-money ideas and points (he is a smart, experienced guy), Gravel knows only one tone: kooky, angry guy rant. He’s the loose-canon, old uncle I love inviting to Thanksgiving to keep things interesting. I want this guy at my party, but not as head of my Democratic Party. Some righteous indignation works here and there for effect, but sparingly. He didn’t smile much or engage in light-hearted banter. Some light-hearted, pre-emptive self-mockery would have helped a bit only if he had some variety in his tonality, and smiled more instead of using the same angry tone for every response.

Still, in general, a bit of pre-emptive self-mockery on the small things can help. By using this strategy, you’re saying you can laugh at yourself on the obvious physical or stylistic idiosyncrasies (height, rambling, goofy looks). Self-effacing humor in small amounts says, “Ok, we dealt with the elephant in the room, now we can move on to the serious issues.” Levity makes truth easier to talk about, and candidates and voters win when this happens.

Thus, humor matters for political news, too. According to studies conducted by Pew Research, comedy shows, including The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, are increasingly being cited as primary and preferred sources of political news among 18-34 year olds.

As the great satirist of the early 20th century, Will Rogers, said, “The times are changing when we take our political comedians seriously and our politicians less so. He was right.

Most politicians today could take a few cues from Jon Stewart on how to reach voters with truth and humor.

Read the original published article here

Kathy Klotz-Guest is a founding fellow, CFO and contributor on humor and marketing issues. Please explore their website for more insight and informative reading:
http://sncr.org/