subject: The Use Of Humor In Communication [print this page] I have learned that humor can be very effective in communication when you use it to help to get a point across. Effective humor is used sparingly. Dry humor will do nothing at all to help you so you should be sure to temper the humor that you use to the crowd which you are addressing. Humor varies according to socioeconomic status so the joke which works for one crowd wont work for another. You must look beyond the thing which is humorous to you. You have to take account of crowd age, social status, regional status, and the setting that you are in before you decide to use humor.
The thing that makes humor effective is timing. The joke must appear natural and unrehearsed in order to be effective. You the story teller must believe in your joke in order for it to work. You must know that it is funny, not hope that it will be funny. People will pick up your doubt much faster than you imagine and it will dampen the flavor of any humor that you will try to use. So the first tip is to be sure that the humor that you use is good. You also need to be careful not to offend your crowd. Most people dont mind a little good natured ribbing but be very careful that you dont get too serious and dont pick on one group to the exclusion of others.
Dont attempt to use intellectual jokes if your crowd is not an intellectual crowd. Humor can backfire on you if you utilize it the wrong way. If your humor stinks in the eyes of your audience you will also lose them on the rest of your communication. Bad humor will prevent you from being able to get the message across that you really want to get across. If you tell jokes sparingly they will serve to tweak the interest of your crowd. If you attempt to tell too many they will distract from the actual point that you want to get across. In this case people will tend to not take you seriously and will want to hear the next joke rather than pay attention to your message. Use infrequent short jokes or statements throughout your message to get the best effect on your audience.
Sometimes there are times when we as leaders have to reprove a subordinate. I have found that you can still do this in all seriousness and use humor to deflect any defensive response that the subordinate may want to make. You must make your subordinate understand that you are serious first but may choose to interject some humor to lighten the mood. This of course is situational dependant and wont always work. I have found that this type of discipline works in many situations and serves to take the hard edge off of the discipline. I have done this with good people who were just making mistakes that I couldnt allow to continue to go on. Some people wont have any respect at all for your attempts at levity. It is best to use a hard line approach for those types of people.
There are many other ways to make your communication more effective and humor is not the least of the techniques that you can use. It would be a disaster though to use something that is not natural to your character so if you are not the fun loving easy going type of person this may not be the best way for you to attempt to get your message across.
A good joke can also be used to help you tactfully tell someone to get lost. I use this technique many times as a retail merchant. Sometimes you get the customer who is just so obnoxious that you have to shut them down. You can do this rather easily if you know how to apply humor. If you naturally have a sense of humor you may want to use it for effective communication. Riceland Enterprises
