Patterns of Humour

Being funny is something that most of us desire to do well, yet it often eludes us. There are some simple key points to humour that can be practiced by anyone to make their comments lighter, funnier, and more entertaining.

The use of humour can be a valuable tool in a variety of situations. Humour can break tension which may otherwise lead to conflict. Humour can be a useful ice breaker in starting a conversation whether it is with a co-worker, a prospect, or that new person working at the firm down the hall.

Humour puts us in a nice state of mind, most people enjoy laughing and tend to gravitate toward people that make them laugh. Emotionally we are more open to ideas and suggestions and our ability to think flexibly is improved. The humorous response is actually the response to misdirection and mismatching from what we expected. This makes humour skills even more vital as they enable us to bring others to a state in which we can then guide things in the direction we want.

The basic pattern of humour is one of misinterpretation. Whether the joke is a one liner or takes five minutes to tell, the punch line works because of misinterpretation on the part of the listener. The punch line delivers a different interpretation of the events with a surprising punch. It is this shift of perception that results in laughter. Additionally someone is usually uncomfortable in the joke in some sense, leading to the idea of being the butt of a joke.

Many people have told me that they just can’t tell jokes, they can’t remember them, or they just aren’t able to be funny. As with any skill, humour takes some practice. Of course there are people who appear to be naturally funny, some folks don’t think they ever “learned” this skill because they were not formally trained. Like most behaviours the skill of being funny is learned through modeling others which means that we can only be as funny as they are. We see and hear others and observe the responses that the listeners have to them. From this we develop a model of humour.

Most punch lines and humorous statements provide a shift of perception or interpretation from the norm, you were expecting cherry ice cream and got broccoli! This interpretation can the result of a variety of things; misunderstanding a word and responding to a word that is close to it, double entendres in which a different meaning of the same word is used, responses which are embarrassing to most of us, and responses which show an interpretation that is outside of regular behavior for the group you are a part of at the time.

This basic understanding of what sort of things are funny and when, doesn’t tell us why they are funny. The source of the humour is often outside of our awareness. To understand funny you need to dig deeper into what is happening in the mind. The simplest example is a short joke or skit.

“A guy walks past a mental hospital and hears a moaning voice "13.......13.......13.........13" the man looks over to the hospital and sees a hole in the wall, he looks through the hole and gets poked in the eye. The moaning voice then continues on ‘14.........14.........14.......14.'”

For the listener an image is created in which their idea of a hospital with a wall is created. As humans tend to be curious it is normal that we would follow the same path as the subject of the joke. In this case we have a layered punch line, the first is the surprise of being poked in the eye, which we can imagine like a skit with the guy looking into the end of the hose trying to figure out why there is no water. When he is poked he looks foolish for putting himself in this position. The second layer of punch line is the resumption of the counting from inside the wall which shows us that this was the intention of the speaker to begin with. Of course this is no longer amusing when it is dissected in this fashion but it does point out the two operant portions of a joke, surprise and ridicule. Without these there is no joke, or it is a very weak joke.

While many people tell me they can’t remember jokes it seems that the important thing to remember is the punch line and the structure of the joke. Everything else that you say is just clothing hung on it to add to the character of it. This doesn’t mean that the story leading to the punch line is unimportant, it must draw in the listener, catch their interest, and help them identify with the character in the joke.

I doubt I ever tell a joke the same way twice, I only worry about the punch line and structure. Once you think about humour this way it makes it far easier to relax and get people laughing. If you are concerned about remembering every word correctly you will throw off your delivery and your concern will be telegraphed to the listener ruining their experience as well.

“Deep within a forest, a little turtle began to climb a tree. After hours of effort, he reached the top, jumped into the air waving his front legs and crashed to the ground. After recovering, he slowly climbed the tree again, jumped, and fell to the ground. The turtle tried again and again, while a couple of birds sitting on a branch watched his sad efforts. Finally, the female bird turned to her mate. "Dear," she chirped, "I think it's time to tell him he's adopted."

This joke is a good example of many of the patterns that make a joke funny. The first is that the main character is doing something with a lot of intent and effort. The repeated attempts and overcoming of serious obstacles for a turtle put the listener in a mindset of hard work, intent, and determination. It also helps them identify with his struggle making it their own. The punch line shows that the turtle’s efforts are ridiculous since it was thinking it could fly. There is also a subtler second commentary here about the difficulty of telling a child they are adopted. If you try the alternate punch line “I think it’s time to tell him he can’t fly.” The response is nowhere near as intense. This shows one of the aspects of humour that is often missed, discomfort or the suggestion that the character is somehow deficient is usually a part of any funny exchange. This is also reflected in clean and politically correct humour, which pretty much isn’t funny.

An unexpected point, a hard stop “k” sound is amusing to people. I have heard that this is related to the types of sounds that parents make to infants which make them laugh. If you have the opportunity in word choice to use words with hard k’s they may not break out laughing but they will loosen up and smile some. Don’t take my word for it, experiment with it some and you will find that a cricket is funnier than a bug and Keokuk is much funnier than Cincinatti.

“The scene is the darkest jungle in Africa. Two tigers are stalking through the jungle when the one in the rear suddenly reaches out with his tongue and licks the butt of the one in front. The lead tiger turns and says, "Hey, cut it out, alright." The other tiger says sorry and they continue on their way.
After about five minutes the rear tiger suddenly repeats his action. The front tiger turns angrily and says," I said don't do that again!" The rear tiger says "sorry" again and they continue.
After about another five minutes, the rear tiger repeats his action. The front tiger turns and says, "What is it with you, anyway? I said to stop." The rear tiger says, "I really am sorry but I just ate a lawyer and I'm just trying to get the taste out of my mouth."

This joke presents things in a longer format which functions to build up the pattern. It is fairly typical of this sort of joke to use three iterations of the scenario before the punch line is delivered. Three seems to be a fairly important number in human behavior, especially in demonstrating patterns of behavior, and helps to really draw in the listener. In this particular case the result of going through the same pattern three times gives the listener a little bit of conditioning to the pattern. At the same time the listener is trying to figure out the reason why anyone would do something so disgusting to a person, yet something that for a tiger is a natural part of cleaning. This shows the metaphorical nature of jokes. While we are talking about tigers we are at the same time implying that we are talking about people. The punch line then whacks you by offering a reason that makes sense yet makes someone else look foolish in the process.

Now that we have looked at the basic ideas of humour we can explore the thinking that goes on to come up with something funny. We are all used to the standard interpretation of things. Finding the offbeat interpretation or misunderstanding of them is a key technique to humour creation. In the example above the tiger has to be shown to be doing something that actually makes sense in the circumstance. Since most of us can’t think of a reason to lick someone’s butt the provision of the punch line actually relieves stress that builds up inside of us from the lack of understanding.

We are conditioned to make sense of the world around us. When we don’t understand things we build up a tension inside which gives us focus and energy to solve the mystery. There is a point at which this reaches threshold and we go into frustration and irritation over our inability to solve it. Providing the punch line at as close to the maximum positive buildup will get the strongest response. If we pass that point before the punch is delivered we can run into defensive reactions resulting from the listener’s embarrassment about getting it late. A simple way to think about this is the distance you run before you jump over something, once you reach the maximum speed there isn’t any point in running further; you just start to get tired.

To be spontaneously funny requires two things, exposure to many other funny events which allows you to identify similarities in current situations, and a fractured viewpoint. By a fractured viewpoint I mean that you have to be able to find a fully different interpretation of the situation and play it as though it is yours.

Improper comparisons, especially those that are slightly taboo or distasteful are often humorous as are references in which something is misclassified. Commenting that the elevator was so packed you couldn’t have fit a loud fart or referring to something as being smaller than a mouse’s rectum both play into this type of humour. Shifting things into the pattern that are outside of the norm are also amusing. Referring to a school as Our Lady of Sour Milk has great response potential since there are many schools which have names that start this way, the Sour Milk part then shifts away to something disgusting and amusing that is still related to children.

So now you are like a one armed man with a bow, you have enough information to be dangerous. Now you can start experimenting with these ideas and find the particular style of funny that is right for you and your closest victims!

Strategies for Building Expectation & Agreement

We go through out daily life monitoring and depending on expectations. These include our expectations of ourselves, others, and our surrounding environment. We expect our co-workers to show up at work, we expect the car to start, and we expect to be able to perform our tasks to our standards, just to name a few.

When things don’t match our expectation we then respond to it. The nicest way for things to go is for them to exceed our expectations. A bigger raise, a nicer outcome, a better meal, when the outcome exceeds our expectations we respond happily. Sadly, most of the time our expectations are not met it is because the outcome has failed to meet them. Not making a sale, getting a bad report, burning dinner, etc. all result in some form of negative emotional response. The strength of the response is usually directly related to the importance of the expectation. Of course repeated failures in a row will increase our anxiety and negative response. This can result in the “bad day” idea where we feel like we just had a bad day or assignment of a negative response to something which fails repeatedly. Your car can only break down on you so many times before you decide it has to go, despite the fact that it probably performed well for more than 99% of the time you owned it.

In dealing with people it is important to make sure that we meet their expectations as much as possible in order to continue to build and grow important relationships. This spans from your boss and co-workers to your family and friends. The more people find you to meet their good expectations the more they will feel they can rely and depend on you.

This doesn’t mean you become a bootlicking toady who does anything anyone asks but rather that you refine a couple of skills; one in communication, the other in organization.

When you discuss things with people you are creating and sharing an idea of the outcome, otherwise known as expectation. To improve this get more detailed in your descriptions and agreement with others. Much of our communication involves shortcuts to make it faster, pronouns, generalizations, and unspecified words leave us in a position where two people can discuss something with both having a different expectation.

“I’ll get that report to you quickly.” This comment has great value in the upfront building of expectation. The person waiting for the report is now expecting that the right report, formatted the right way, transmitted the way they want it, is going to arrive in a period of time they have determined as “quickly”. You’re screwed unless you get more definition!

In order to get this outcome better defined clarify the following; time the report is expected, how it should be formatted, how it is to be transmitted, what data is to be in it. Not only does this save you the possibility of failing to meet the receiver’s expectation, it also helps you be more efficient as you will have less opportunity to have to redo work that wasn’t clearly defined.

Once you have gathered all the information to make a clear and mutually agreeable expectation, state the expectation back to the other person for their confirmation. “OK, so you want the sales figures for the first quarter of 2009, including gross sales, gross profit, and gross profit percentage, in a spreadsheet, via email, by 10 am tomorrow morning.” When the listener agrees then you have created a proper expectation in which both of you have agreed and confirmed the task.

The second skill that you will want to hone is that of knowing what you can actually do. If there is no way you can have the report ready by 10 am, then don’t agree to it. Better to work it out now than miss a deadline that the other person is relying on you to achieve. Additionally, if your performance is linked to someone or something else then this must also be clarified. There is no harm in saying that it is conditional to the materials being delivered or accounting having closed the books on those jobs. You have the opportunity here to build in a check point at which you let the person know that the conditions have been met or you are still waiting for something.

This is a point of communication that many people miss much to their own detriment, updates. Giving someone an update helps them adapt and adjust their expectation. If you are assigned a job and a week into it you are still waiting for a lab test to return it is worth the time to let your client know about that fact and the affect on the project. While it may seem pointless to update people with something as simple as “I am working on this and haven’t gotten the answer yet”, this type of communication goes a long way in keeping people happy. For the person awaiting your proposal, report, work, completion, dinner, etc. an update will let them adjust their expectation and stay happy. Failing to update often results in more upset when the expectation is missed as well as concerns about not being updated.

Test these ideas out a little. You will quickly find that better detail, achievable commitments, and interim communication, will result in improved cooperation, smoother relationships, and more leeway when things don’t go the way you would like them to.

As always, please feel free to share your feedback and experiences so that we can all benefit from your own exploration and discovery. Paul

Positive and Negative Input and Diffusal

We regularly find ourselves having to communicate with people regarding their actions. When performance is significantly above or below our standards we often express ourselves about it. Our intent it to give them feedback on their performance with the idea that they will want to improve or keep up the good work. This is especially important in management and relationships where our expectations of others are most important.

Unfortunately these comments, especially the negative ones, can result in blowback from the person receiving them. This is not necessarily because your comments are inaccurate, but rather that they create a negative emotional state for the listener who then attempts to recover their mental balance. This can result in unproductive interactions, name calling, hurt feelings, insubordination reports, etc.

So how do we avoid this? It is actually simpler than you might think. If you have to give negative feedback on something you can make a small shift to what you say and get an entirely different response.

The original statement might be-

"You aren't very good at this are you? Look at how badly this is messed up."

The altered statement could be-

"This isn't done the way I would like it, please redo it like this."

Or-

"This is a different result than was expected."

The shift is fairly simple, make the comment about the result or outcome of the event, not the person you are giving feedback to. This way their response is then about the situation, not one of compensating attempting to maintain their personal balance. Try each statement out on yourself and you will probably notice the difference in your response between the different comments.

When giving positive feedback shift in the other direction.

If the original statement is-

"This came out well and looks great."

It has an entirely different response as-

"You are very skilled at this, I am glad I asked you to take care of it."

What is happening here is that you are attributing the success and your happiness with the outcome to the person who performed it, complimenting the person rather than the outcome. As with the negative comment, try this out on yourself and feel the difference in your responses.

These small shifts can have a huge result in your communications. By not triggering negative responses to critical comments and creating very positive response to praise you can improve your interaction with almost anyone. These small shifts are not sugar coating or changing your response, just the way it is delivered to the listener.

Try these out and remember that small changes make big differences!