Laughter is the best medicine
Laughter might be the best medicine, but like all medicines, when taken at the wrong time or in the wrong dose – it can be fatal. As a speaker there is nothing quite so painful as an attempt at humour that goes down like a lead balloon.
I remember one painful experience when I was speaking at a management away day at a large firm where I was doing some consulting. The CEO had just spoken and announced that the firm now had an order book of a billion euros. Quite amazing for a family business with just a few thousand employees. I was up to speak shortly after the CEO and without really thinking it through I adlibbed a remark at the start of my presentation about the ‘frankly uninspiring goals the company had set itself.’ Ouch right! My intention was to be ironic – saying the opposite of what I mean for comedic effect. In truth the company goals were impressive, its performance was inspiring and everyone should be proud of what they had achieved in the last year. However, the irony did not work. The CEO thought I was not being funny – he thought I was criticising him in front of his whole team. And every speaker who came after me started their presentation by saying how happy they were to work for a company with such inspiring goals…
Humour is hard, it is a sharp two-edged blade – if used well it can cut to the heart of a problem and defuse tension and build rapport – if used wrong you can really injure yourself!
Here are my top tips for how and when to use humour in your presentation
Always be the fall guy
If you tell a joke or a story, ensure that you are always the butt of the joke. You can make fun of yourself but not other people.
Beware International Audiences – humour does not translate
Humour is usually closely tied to the culture and world-view that created it. Which means jokes do not usually translate well. Let me give you an example – this joke always reduces my Spanish Father-in-Law to tears:
“why does the dog bury his bone in the garden? Because he does not have any pockets.”
Exactly. Not funny at all.
Irony is best avoided
As I discovered to my peril – irony is the hardest humour to use safely. You might get away with calling a new Porsche an ‘old banger’ but best to do so if it’s your new Porsche – not the clients!
Humour defuses Tension
If you are dealing with an intensive subject – emotionally charged or sad – then some humour can effectively defuse the tension and allow you to move forward and change the emotional tone and energy in the room. I ran a workshop with disabled veterans and many of them used humour to change the mood as they told the story of their journey to recovery. There is truth in the old saying that a great speech will make then laugh and make them cry. Finish with laughter though – not tears.
Laughter is amazing – we are able to laugh from about 15 weeks old – and Laughter researcher Robert Provine said: "Laughter is a mechanism everyone has; laughter is part of universal human vocabulary. There are thousands of languages, hundreds of thousands of dialects, but everyone speaks laughter in pretty much the same way." Babies have the ability to laugh before they ever speak. Children who are born blind and deaf still retain the ability to laugh. Studies have shown that laughter induced from classic Marx brothers’ films can produce up to two hours of pain free sleep in patients with chronic conditions.
Laughter releases endorphins which make us feel good, it reduces the production of stress hormones cortisol and epinephrine. King Solomon wrote in the book of Proverbs that ‘a joyful heart is good medicine’ and a study published in 2000 found that people who suffer from heart disease are 40% less likely to laugh and find humour in their day.
In this week’s podcast episode of Public Speaking and Presenting Made Easy I am joined by international speaker, author and laughter coach – Dave Berman. You can watch the interview here or subscribe to the Public Speaking and Presenting Made Easy podcast on Apple, Google and Spotify Podcasts.