Chapter 12
HUMOUR IN LIFE
I heard one comic say “If I am not funny, people won’t take me seriously.”
Norman Cousins was in the hospital with a degenerative disease. The doctors said he had a slim chance of recovery 1 in 500. Cousins knew that a negative attitude had a damaging effect on one’s health and reasoned that a positive attitude must have a positive effect. So if “laughter is the best medicine” then he would try that. He describes in his book "The Anatomy of an Illness"(2) how the hospital was, for him, a depressing and disturbing environment, so he took a room in a hotel and got funny movies and read funny books. Much to his delight he found that after a good laughter session the medical tests showed definite and immediate improvement. So he kept on with the “treatment.” He laughed himself into recovery!
Several thousand years ago the Bible seems to agree with this.
“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine;
but a broken spirit drieth the bones.”
Proverbs 17:22
I wanted to write a book called “Management is a Joke!”, and maybe I will someday. The ultimate bad joke is the man who gives his all for the company for all of his working life, then is fired just before retirement. Or why work so hard, at the sacrifice to yourself and your family, then a comet hits the earth!
The reason I wanted to write about “Management is a Joke”, was because of two experiences I had.
I worked for a food company as their industrial engineer and was invited to a meeting in the Board Room to get an update on company activities. During the meeting the President called for a taste session for a new product a new kind of pie. When the white-coated staff from the lab brought in the pie, one piece to each at the meeting, we all started eating pie. What were we supposed to do, laugh or cry? I found it hilarious to watch all the executives eating pie with serious looks on their faces. What if somebody really didn’t like it -and ....! Oh, no!
Then I read an excellent book that should be taught in every management course. It was called “One Upmanship”(3) and showed how to get "one up" on your associates. When you know the game, it is quite amusing to watch it being played out. It makes you take less seriously the politics of the business environment. It helps to reduce your own stress when you see it as a funny game. You can even play it yourself, as long as you see the funny side.
Laughter is the antidote to disease, and the world’s best medicine. I sat through a session at a conference where the leader was a professional in training business people in the art of laughter. He had us all lie on the floor and start to laugh. The more you laugh, and hear others doing the same, well, the more you laugh! It was fun to experience belly laughs in a group of otherwise serious people.
Teri-E Belf is a consultant I know(4) who trains business people in stress reduction and has developed the expression “Plurking.” It means to combine “play” with “work”. In her first job they told her that work “..was serious business, not a place to play.” People in her immediate environment did not connect play and work, but she wanted people to relate to each other with more fun. She found in her later work that the values which executives espoused were different than those in actual practice. They believed in having fun at work, but did not practice it.
As some people have said: "Live on the earth lightly." and I believe that is a good rule by which to live.
Humour is seeing things differently than what is normally expected. If you see the funny side of the situation it is because you see it through new eyes.
Cartoons and the comics are fun because in many cases they see ordinary things in a fresh light and then you see how funny you, or they, are. Notice how many secretaries and junior staff post cartoons about their management or their company to make light of the otherwise serious nature of their environment. The trick of the senior manager is to be light hearted and still maintain the respect of associates. Try it!
As you get older, how can you see the funny side of aging? The actor Danny Kaye in his prime would do take-offs of an aging person conducting an orchestra, or other antics and be hilariously funny.
In my survey of older people I was looking for advice or observations that would be helpful to those in similar circumstances. Notable was the fact that none of them mentioned the value of a sense of humour. What I have noticed in groups of older people is the many who have sad looks about them. Why? Have they lost interest in life? Or maybe they are in pain, or have run out of energy.. Let us not forget the value of seeing the funny side of things. Like Norman Cousins, read funny books, see funny movies. Laugh and the world laughs with you. Spread the cheer.
See the funny side of the physical limitations that come upon us and find the burden easier to bear.