Personal Development
Life Tools for Lawyers: The Value of Humor
According to the Humor Project in Sarasota, New York, it is quite possible to be "a serious professional without being a solemn professional". Laughter is like internal jogging and he or she who laughs lasts, just as medical researcher Dr. Norman Cousins said in 1979.
Like any other work-out, laughter improves your respiration and circulation, oxygenates the blood, suppresses stress-related hormones and releases endorphins in the brain, and it activates the immune system. Evidence has shown that humor can play a role in speeding recovery from injury, reducing allergic response, and promoting mental and physical health.
And there is room in the law business for laughter. In a survey of 737 CEOs, over 98% said they would hire somebody with a sense of humor rather than a candidate without one. "Ben and Jerry's" has a Joy Committee providing grants to employees to develop ideas that bring more joy into the workplace.
Ken Blanchard, The One Minute Manager, says in Laughing Matters:
"Humor and laughter in organizations can increase the amount of feedback you can get, the honesty, and the capacity for people to tell you good things. All the solutions to problems in organizations are within your own people, but the problem is half of them don't want to say anything because they usually get zapped - you kill the messenger. It's through humor that you can open up the lines to communication."
Respected researchers John Gottman and Sybil Careere are able to predict the success of a marriage with 88% to 94% accuracy based on the presence of romance, humor, and affection in the marital partners' communication style. This may be why "his sense of humor" is so often given by women to explain their attraction to a particular male.
Some 69% of couples have perpetual problems, like different attitudes toward finances, which can kill a marriage unless the communication style that frames the discussion reflects those three factors. While the study identified criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling as destroyers of marriages, an effective funny bone can ameliorate their effect.
In social situations, humor is a powerful tool to help people get to know one another, to bond teams, to overcome cultural differences, and bring newcomers into the fold. In business, humor improves performance, encourages positive thinking, energizes meetings, promotes creativity, and gets more work done. Humor is the bonding agent that creates trust and strengthens relationships.
Humor is a proven antidote to stress, a key to good communications, and a contributes to healthy relationships. Are lawyers better known for their humor skills or for being offended by lawyer jokes? Jokes-about-lawyers aside, developing your humor skills is sure to make you healthier and happier. And humor is a skill that can be developed.
If you are feeling humor-challenged and frightened by the suggestion that you should develop this inter-personal skill - perhaps you should consider whether you are overloaded by stress or work. Or is this a sign you need emotional therapy due to depression?
And don't worry about it if you are not a stand-up comic -
The Humor Project has been operating since 1977, and while 80% of its seminar participants think they have good senses of humor, 98% of them say they can't tell a joke to saye their life.
Work on it
If you need some hints for developing your funny bone:
- Don't even try to be a stand-up comedian if you are shy or you can't remember punch-lines. Or give it a try by joining one of the comedy workshops at a local community college or center.
- The truth is often funnier than fiction. Tell your own true-life stories. Didn't Seinfeld show us the success of that?
- Freely share your witty or wry observations about daily life. Just remember humor only works when it meets the AT&T Test: Appropriate, Timely & Tasteful.
- Collect other people's personal stories or anecdotes to share in future. Just don't forget the lawyer's commitment to confidentiality - keep the characters unrecognizable.
- Watch the Comedy Network.
- Subscribe to an emailed daily joke or purchase a desk-calendar with a daily joke.
We'll never forget the effect of pasting up on our office door this item from a daily calendar: "There can simply be no crises next week, my schedule is already full." Henry Kissinger.
