Want It Done Right Journal 4Q 2007

Feature Article • Delegation Dr Daily Dose • Corner Crack-up • WIDR Products & Services • My Virtual Manager^TM

Productivity is No Laughing Matter. Or is it

As a licensed psychologist I am required to complete a certain number of continuing education (CE) units every year. While I enjoy learning, I struggle with this requirement because I rarely find courses that provide approved CE units in my field of organizational psychology. I’ve resigned myself to attending courses that revisit my roots in clinical psychology hoping I can find some tidbits of information loosely related to my field. This year I needed a break from my logical brain so I decided to go for a course with entertainment value — using humor in psychotherapy. Surprisingly it provided not only a much needed break but offered great insights into the role of humor in our everyday lives as well as in psychotherapy. My thanks go to Fred Heide, Ph.D. and Lee Beacker who put on a lively learning experience. This article will be an attempt to provide you with some comic relief and to share a few insights.

You may be wondering what a CE course has to do with productivity. And what productivity has to do with a CE course on humor. Employees don’t think there is anything funny about productivity and business owners certainly don’t laugh when the topic comes up. But maybe productivity is, or should be, a laughing matter. Consider this. Research on mood and performance demonstrated that one in five subjects who were in a neutral or bad mood were able to figure out a solution to a problem. When subjects were exposed to something funny that put them in a positive mood prior to performing, 75% were able to figure out the solution to the problem. You do the math. These people were also better able to find integrative (versus contentious or compromising) solutions when they were in a positive mood.

Other research has shown that self-efficacy is the best predictor of human behavior. In other words, people who express confidence in being able to perform a task are more likely to actually perform it than those who are not confident in their ability to do so. Back to the humor research, self-efficacy significantly increases when people are in a positive mood versus a neutral or bad mood. The happier people are, the more confident they feel; the more confident they feel, the better they perform. Injecting a dose of humor into our work environments may not only make everyone happier but more productive as well.

Researchers have found that humor:

Improves rapport: Physicians who were rated highest in patient satisfaction used humor twice as often as those rated lower. (Sala, Krupat & Roter, 2002)
Enhances psychological health: A sense of humor is the best predictor of life satisfaction, job success, marital stability and physical and psychological health. (Valliant and Valliant, 1992)
Promotes physical health: 100 laughs are equal to 15 minutes on a stationary bicycle! (APA, 1997)
Moderates stress and depression: There is a direct correlation between scores on the Coping Humor Scale (CHS) and one’s level of depression and ability to handle stress. High scorers (more humor) vary little with increased stress and were always less depressed than low scorers. (Nezu, Nezu & Blisset, 1988)
Facilitates creative and flexible problem solving: More than 25 experiments have demonstrated that a positive mood enhances people’s ability to see alternative perspectives, think more flexibly and reach cooperative solutions. (Ashby, Isen & Turken, 1999)

According to E.B. White, “Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. They both die in the process.” However, since work is steeped in seriousness, maybe there’s a need to create humor in the workplace. Being funny has to be a natural process (versus an educational one). It’s a right-brained rather than a left-brained phenomenon. The nature of work is highly cognitive; it’s a left-brained exercise. It seems to make sense then that injecting a bit of humor could be like a brain steroid to engage and flex the right-brained muscles thereby avoiding rigid left-brained thinking. Call it brain balancing. Being funny involves being more playful and spontaneous, shedding inhibitions and judgments, maybe being more like kids. This is not meant to suggest immaturity or inappropriateness but to simply lighten up for a time; to provide some comic relief in our overly serious days. After all “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.”

Here are some of the basic humor methods we used in the CE course:

1. • Exaggeration – making something bigger.

2. • Understatement – making something smaller.

3. • Irony – stating the opposite.

4. • Parody – making something different by broadly mimicking it.

5. • Wordplay – using a meaning from a different context.

6. • Joke – switching from one assumption to another.

While there isn’t sufficient space to cover these methods in detail here, they might be worth further exploration. One way of promoting humor that seems to be gaining attention is called “comedy sports” which you can learn more about at www.comedysportz.com. Basically the Oxford definition of humor –that quality of action, speech or writing which excites amusement, oddity, jocularity, facetiousness, comicality and fun – may be a good starting point in making the workplace a better place. Lefcourt, a humor researcher suggests that “if one did little else, the encouragement of flexible thinking, of learning to generate multiple responses to (singular events) and lessening the fear of rejection for attempts at being comical or provoking laughter would be good starting points for … enhancing (our) humorous capacity.” When it comes to suffering productivity then, maybe laughter is the best medicine.

Corner Crack-up

The manager of a large office noticed a new man one day and told him to come
into his office.

"What’s your name?" was the first thing the manager asked the new guy.

"John," the new guy replied.

The manager scowled, "Look... I don't know what kind of a mamby-pamby place
you worked at before, but I don't call anyone by their first name. It breeds
familiarity and that leads to a breakdown in authority. I refer to my employees
by their last name only... Smith, Jones, Baker... that's all. I am to be
referred to only as Mr. Robertson. Now that we got that straight, what is your
last name?"

The new guy sighed, "Darling. My name is John Darling."

"Okay, John, the next thing I want to tell you is..."

Delegation Doctor’s Daily Dose

For 18 years my professional mission statement has been “to help people get out of their own way.” In this time I have encountered extremely diverse and creative ways in which people get in their own way, usually without them being aware of it. I thought it might be helpful to share some of the more common self-defeating thoughts and behaviors people share and what to do about them.

If I want it done right, I have to do it myself. Of course one of the most common is the topic of my book. Almost all of the professionals I’ve coached believed that if they wanted something done right they had to do it themselves. Fortunately, even the staunchest believers of this statement have let go and delegated once they learned the process outlined in the book.

Flying solo. This behavior is similar to the belief mentioned above but typically involves problem-solving or emotional support. Professionals tend to be individual contributors; they’re accustomed to flying solo and enjoy the “win” associated with accomplishments. However, this style leads them to not seek help when they need it or could benefit from it. Unfortunately, the more challenging the problem or emotional issue, the less likely they are to be able to master it, sometimes simply because they lack objectivity. Ironically, seeking input and assistance from others is more a sign of strength than weakness. It takes a strong person to admit vulnerability and recognize they don’t always have all the answers.

Taking too much responsibility. People who see themselves as masters of their universe tend to take on so much responsibility that there’s no room for others to perform or help. Sure leaders carry a lot of weight on their shoulders, but recognizing when they’re carrying someone else’s load is a critical factor in engaging and empowering others. It is often these same leaders who complain about people “not stepping up to the plate” without recognizing how they enable them to not do so. Establishing and maintaining clear lines of responsibility promotes meaningful participation.

Negative self-talk. It should not be surprising that many people who are successful are very hard on themselves. Often their expectations of themselves are extremely unrealistic. As long as they meet these expectations, they’re okay but heaven forbid they should fall short. Successful people can be absolutely merciless with themselves. If I could fulfill one dream, it would be that everyone on earth would be their own best friend; the kind of friend that tells you how great you are when you deserve it and how to get your act together when you deserve that feedback. Developing a positive relationship with ourselves is the cornerstone of a healthy outlook and a happy life. The good news is, if we have a best friend it means we know how to be one to someone else. Now all we need to do is act the same way with ourselves!

Taking ourselves too seriously. It’s so easy to take life too seriously and ourselves too seriously as a result. People seem to be inherent worriers, imagining all kinds of catastrophes befalling them. Disasters do occur but on a percentage basis, I would guess that about 95% of what we worry about never occurs. What a drain of time and energy, especially since worrying doesn’t better prepare us for these events. Reiterating the gist of the feature article, lightening up is like a hefty dose of psychological vitamins. Laughing at ourselves may be the best way to promote better problem-solving should a crisis occur. Better yet, if a crisis doesn’t occur, our overall happiness and enjoyment of life is significantly enhanced.

These are just a few of the many ways in which people get in their own way. If you haven’t found any here that apply to you, hooray for you. However, this is a two part article so stay tuned to the next Want It Done Right Journal. You may find one that relates to you there! If you have any you’d like to share, let us know by sending an email to Donna@WantItDoneRight.com.

WIDR

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