by Steve Adubato, PhD

When it comes to communication, humor isn’t always funny in the world of business. We saw this recently when President Barack Obama, in trying to sell his economic plan on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, said in reference to his bowling a 129; “It was like Special Olympics, or something.”

Clearly Obama was not trying to be mean spirited or disrespectful to children with special needs. Rather, he was trying to be funny. However, for many, this is all they will remember or know about the Tonight Show interview—that the president made a disparaging comment about the Special Olympics (in an effort to be humorous). That’s the thing about humor—it is often a high risk move, particularly when the stakes are serious. In light of the president’s late night communication mistake, let’s consider the pros and cons to humor in business.

The Pros:

--In a stressful situation, humor has the potential to ease the tension of employees and break down barriers so that people can talk in a more relaxed and informal fashion.

--Humor can wake up a sluggish audience that may be expecting the same old, predictable, business presentation filled with mind-numbing facts and figures. A speaker can immediately energize an audience by getting them to laugh, which in turn prepares them to be engaged.

--Humor, done in the right way and at the right time, can also humanize a communicator in the workplace—particularly if that humor is self deprecating. Humor also has the potential to bring a team together if they are all laughing at the same thing that is said or done by a team participant or leader.

--Finally, humor can make the work day go by faster by moving away from all the tasks, assignments and projects that pile up on our desks.

Yet, there is another side to humor that is not always fun:

--If a professional attempts to be funny by telling a joke, but misses the mark, the presenter can look really bad. It can hurt his credibility and his reputation within the organization and the marketplace. Negative impressions are hard to undo.

--If you don’t get a desired reaction from your audience, it can throw you off big time to the point where you can’t recover. You can become distracted and insecure saying to yourself; “Boy, that joke didn’t get the reaction I wanted…they hate me…what do I do now?” (Was it really worth telling that joke?)

--As in the case of President Obama, attempts at humor can offend your audience and others that simply hear about your comments, thereby alienating people from you and jeopardizing whatever it is you are trying to sell or persuade people to do. This can adversely affect any future interaction with the offended party. In turn, this can negatively affect a team’s ability to be productive well after the offensive remark.

--Finally, humor gone wrong can be a tremendous distraction from work that has to be done. Even though the communicator is looking to bring people together, they can become caught up and try to understand what that “joke” was really about or what the presenter was trying to say.

Humor is great when done in the right way, by the right person, at the right time and with the right audience. But it is risky business indeed and shouldn’t be used without careful consideration. Just ask President Barack Obama. He knows first hand.