A Serious Case for Humor | Jennifer Aaker & Naomi Bagdonas

1. Embrace Not Taking Yourself Seriously

Actively choose not to take yourself too seriously in life and work. This mindset is a common denominator among highly attained individuals and is crucial for human flourishing and happiness.

2. Prioritize Humanity Over Humor

Focus on being your authentic self and a human first in all interactions. This approach naturally unlocks your sense of humor and encourages others to be more open and connected.

3. Cultivate a Mindset of Delight

Navigate your daily life by actively looking for reasons to be delighted rather than disappointed. This helps integrate humor organically without forcing jokes, especially in professional settings.

4. Focus Humor on Others’ Feelings

When considering using humor, ask yourself, ‘How will this make other people feel?’ instead of ‘Will this make me sound funny?’ The goal is to lighten the room and make others feel at ease, not to get a laugh for yourself.

5. Embrace Humor in High-Tension Times

Actively seek and use humor during periods of tension, stress, or decline in mental well-being. Laughter physiologically releases endorphins, lowers cortisol, and releases dopamine, helping you feel calmer and more connected.

6. Understand Your Humor Style & Context

Identify your personal humor style(s) and learn to ‘read the room’ by considering relationships, context, and power dynamics. This awareness allows you to deploy humor effectively, choosing styles (e.g., magnet or sweetheart when in leadership) that foster connection.

7. Be Generous with Your Laughter

Practice being more generous with your laughter, even when you’re not the one telling the joke. Laughing together shortens the path to connection, making people feel closer and more willing to disclose personal information.

8. Start Humor with Truth, Not Jokes

When attempting to be humorous, begin by noticing simple truths in the world or your own experiences, rather than trying to invent clever jokes. Truth forms the authentic foundation for humor and prevents it from feeling forced.

9. Balance Gravity and Levity

Strive to balance taking your mission and serious matters with appropriate gravity, while simultaneously not taking yourself too seriously. This balance empowers you to navigate challenges more effectively, express authenticity, and cultivate deeper relationships.

10. Strategic Self-Deprecation for Leaders

If you are in a high-status position, use self-deprecating humor strategically. When coming from leaders, self-deprecation is perceived as confidence and humanizing, making you more approachable and fostering connection.

11. Inject Humanity into Digital Comms

Make small, intentional efforts to weave humanity and levity into your digital communications, such as emails, Slack messages, and texts. Even tiny changes can significantly shift interactions, build trust, and create a ripple effect of more human responses from others.

12. Cultivate Shared Laughter in Relationships

Actively cultivate and recall moments of shared laughter with your romantic partner or loved ones. These moments become more memorable, define the relationship, and significantly increase reported happiness.

13. Utilize Trusted Testers for Feedback

Establish a group of ’trusted testers’ who will provide honest and direct feedback on your humor. This is especially crucial for leaders, as it helps calibrate your humor and ensures you receive real feedback to avoid unintended offense.

14. Conduct a Humor Audit

Perform a ‘humor audit’ by observing and recording moments throughout your day when you laughed or smiled, when you made others laugh, and who brings out your sense of humor. This audit serves as a barometer for your mental well-being and helps identify energizing people and activities.

15. Use Misdirection for Laughter

Incorporate an element of misdirection into your observations or statements to create unexpected twists. Laughter often springs from the unexpected, making misdirection a powerful tool to dial up humor.

16. Place Humorous Element at Sentence End

A simple technique to increase levity and decrease risk is to move the humorous or unusual part of your statement to the very end of a sentence. This creates a natural punchline effect.

17. Employ Callbacks for Connection

Use callbacks by referencing a previous laugh line or shared humorous moment later in a conversation or presentation. This low-risk technique makes others feel listened to and reinforces shared positive experiences.

18. Apply Exaggeration and Contrast

Enhance humor by using exaggeration to amplify a truthful observation or by highlighting areas of contrast in your life or observations. Both techniques create unexpected and amusing effects.

19. Use the Rule of Three

When making a list or presenting ideas, use the ‘rule of three’ by creating a list of three items and making the last one unexpected or humorous. This structure provides a natural rhythm and punchline.

20. Avoid Over-Indexing Self-Deprecation

If you are in a lower-status position, be mindful not to over-index on self-deprecating humor. Excessive use in this context can be perceived as genuine insecurity rather than confidence.

21. Intentionally Use Humor in Remote Work

Recognize that humor can be even more important in remote work settings and intentionally incorporate levity into virtual interactions. This helps foster connection, motivation, and mental well-being, often with minimal effort.

22. Perform an Email Audit

Conduct an ’email audit’ by reviewing your recent sent emails (or having a trusted person review them) to assess their level of humanity and humor. This helps identify opportunities to re-inject levity and connection into electronic communication.

23. Personalize Email Sign-offs

Replace generic email sign-offs with personalized, unique, or humorous alternatives that relate to the conversation or the recipient. This is a low-effort way to show humanity and foster connection.

24. Avoid Generic Email Sign-offs

Do not use generic email sign-offs like ‘Best’ or ‘Best regards,’ as they lack humanity and connection. These common sign-offs are considered ineffective at building rapport.

25. Use PS for Email Connection

Add a ‘PS’ to your emails that references something the other person said or did that created a smile or a shared moment. This is a low-stakes way to acknowledge the recipient and inject personal connection.

26. Use Dark Humor as Coping

In high-stakes or difficult situations, use dark or ‘off-record’ humor as a coping mechanism with trusted colleagues or loved ones. This type of humor can help diffuse tension and process difficult emotions, especially when shared with those who understand the context.

27. Strive for Authentic Laughter

Aim for authentic, genuine laughter, also known as Duchenne laughter (where your eyes crinkle). This type of laughter is associated with significantly reduced anger and distress, aiding in emotional processing during difficult conversations.

28. Be Aware of Power Dynamics

If you are in a position of power, be highly aware that people may laugh at your jokes out of obligation, not genuine amusement. Your ‘humor barometer’ can become skewed, potentially leading to inappropriate jokes and interpersonal issues.

29. Embrace Instigators in Your Team

As a leader, embrace and encourage ‘instigators’ – individuals who don’t fit the mold and bring unique, sometimes disruptive, humor or energy. These individuals can loosen up the culture, make others feel safe to be themselves, and ultimately enhance team performance.

30. Elevate Hidden Gems in Team

Identify and elevate ‘hidden gems’ – diligent, under-the-radar high performers with unique passions or talents outside of work. Highlighting their full selves celebrates authenticity, energizes the group, and shows that the organization values diverse contributions.

31. Apologize Genuinely for Humor Fails

If your humor offends someone or crosses a line, offer a genuine and immediate apology. A sincere apology acknowledges the impact, shows remorse, and is the crucial first step in repairing the interaction.

32. Seek to Understand Humor Fails

After apologizing for an inappropriate joke, actively seek to understand what went wrong and what blind spot led to the offense. This demonstrates empathy, a willingness to learn, and helps prevent future similar mistakes, fostering trust.

33. Ask for Humor Feedback Carefully

When seeking feedback on your humor, frame the question to invite constructive criticism, such as ‘How might the humor I used have landed wrong?’ This makes others feel safer to provide honest feedback, especially across power differentials.

34. Address Inappropriate Humor as Witness

If you witness inappropriate humor, decide whether to address it immediately in the moment or in a private one-on-one conversation afterward. The context dictates the best approach, but a private conversation can often strengthen the relationship and encourage self-correction.

35. Name Your Own Truths After Mistakes

In moments where you’ve made a mistake (e.g., an inappropriate joke), name your own truths and vulnerabilities. This demonstrates self-awareness and humanity, which can help diffuse tension and rebuild trust, allowing for a fresh start.

36. Recognize Humor as a Choice

Understand that humor is a conscious choice you can make in various situations, both small and significant. Viewing humor as a choice empowers you to intentionally use it as a tool for connection, tension diffusion, and positive impact.

37. Cultivate Trust Through Leader Humor

As a leader, use humor to cultivate trust and make yourself more understood and relatable to your team. Humor helps bridge the gap between leaders and their teams, fostering a more effective leadership model based on connection and understanding.

38. Find Your Humor Style

Take the humor style quiz at humorseriously.com to identify your authentic humor style(s) (magnet, sweetheart, standup, sniper). Understanding your natural style helps you use humor in more authentic, natural, and fun ways, and informs how you can adapt it to different contexts.