Why do we as grownups seem to lose our sense of humor and laugh way less?!
Children laugh 300X per day and adults…only a piddly 17.
🔓 This Week's Latch Unlock: Leverage Humor!
It turns out that humor in the workplace is critical to creating a thriving workplace.
- Leaders with a good sense of humor are seen as 27% more motivating and inspiring.
- Employees are 15% more engaged when humor is present and 81% report being more productive in a fun workplace.
- Teams are 2X as likely to solve a creative challenge if they laughed beforehand.
What’s unfortunate is that as we move into adulthood, we suffer a “humor cliff” that only picks back up at around 80 years old. Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas unpacked this in their Ted talk called humor in the workplace – it’s hilarious.
Luckily, humor is a choice and maybe there’s space for a shift in belief that we CAN do serious things (i.e. work) without taking ourselves so seriously.
Here are some examples of noteworthy funnies that have been featured on Latch and garnered raging reviews:
1. SHIFT – last week we rolled out a new project management tool, Notion. Nothing creates boredom like a training session on a new tech platform!
How did we infuse levity? Following the pulse question, we shared a skit that poked fun at the challenges which precipitated the need to start using Notion. The team loved it – and you might too! Check it out here.
2. In a Latch launch about goals, an employee commented that she didn’t know where to find the documented goals and therefore didn’t know how to connect her role to the goals. ← BIG win when someone admits this. Speaks to psychological safety (more on that next week).
Instead of just commenting back and dropping a link to the documentation, the Practice Leader did a video filming the inside of his garage that looked very similar to a junk drawer. Everything was there, but everything was everywhere. He then dropped the direct link into the Act prompt – problem solved…with humor included.
3. We all have those few words that we just can’t seem to say correctly. One of our teammates can’t say the word “comfortable” without making it four distinct syllables and another can’t say “pomegranate” although that’s more likely because English is not her native language.
Not being able to say something is funny – and one of our clients recently used self-deprecating humor to repeatedly try to say the word “regularly” at the end of his video. It was hilarious! It made him more human, a lot more likable, and gave everyone a good laugh.
Those are what we call #LatchUnlocks.
If you don’t have a “funny bone” and/or are seriously scratching your head about how to start infusing some humor into your Latch videos, let us know. There’s nothing we like more than a fun, creative project that gets people rolling on the floor.
Ready to learn more about how Latch can transform your organization? Let's chat.
