Episode #41 - June Cline talks about Leaders and Humor at Work - a podcast by Kelly Vandever

Permission to Speak Podcast. Hosted by Leadership Communications Expert Kelly Vandever. Episode #41 - June Cline. Permission to Speak is the video blog and podcast that loiters at the intersections of leaders who want their people to speak up, technology that facilitates connections, and results that serve an organization’s higher purpose. Topics covered in this episode include: - As a child, June learned humor as a way to diffuse difficult situations
- Later in life, in awkward or difficult situations at work, June’s natural propensity to find a one liner or a quip of humor that broke the ice and helped people understand and communicate better
- Funny will shift the energy in the room
- ROI of LOL
- Initiating humor
- Is the humor positive or negative? Is the humor pointed in or pointed out? Those things make a difference in how the humor is received
- Every organization has a corporate humor style
- IMOs – Idiot Moments
- June found humor helped her career and helped get her recognized and asked to be on committees; people wanted to be around her because she made them laugh
- Humor alone isn’t enough. If a leader’s humor style is caustic, then they may alienate member of their team
- Caustic humor, aimed at others, doesn’t work unless you have a large emotional bank account already established with those who are the butt of the humor
- June discovered 4 humor styles: They are Crazy, Caring, Cerebral, and Caustic
- People and cultures generally fall within one of these comedic styles
- Crazies – are wild and out there, they love attention
- Caring – more wholesome, perspective, real-life driving; they’ll tell on themselves or on their family
- (Get permission before telling on your family!)
- Cerebrals – dry humor, smart, thinking humor
- Caustic – biting humor, harsh, more sarcastic
- These styles are generalization, humor is as individual as each of us, we all have some of each type of humor
- Tensions come when people have different humor styles and they don’t get each other
- Visit JuneCline.com – take a humor quiz to find out your humor style and how you initiate humor
- Missing out on connections if you don’t try to tap into the humor styles of those in your group
- Humor is always determined by the ears of the listener
- As a leader, if your humor isn’t landing it might be because (1) the humor is pointed toward others and you don’t have a big emotional bank account with that person/group (2) you don’t have a dog in that hunt, in other words, you’re not part of that group and don’t have the right to use that humor
- (see Steven R. Covey’s writing for more info on the emotional bank account)
- For every negative, it takes 20 positives to overcome the one negative
- If a leader is having problems with humor, they should tell on themselves
- June calls them IMOs = Idiot Moments
- By sharing about an IMO, leaders are letting their guard down and being more real
- Leaders don’t have to be perfect, it makes the leader more human, creates a better connection
- June gives an example of one employee who didn’t quit once he understood his boss’ comedic style, their relationship improved and it saved their company $100,000 that it would have cost to replace him
- Organizations have a style of humor too
- Pay attention to what’s not working or what consistently always happens, use a quip or a quote to lighten the mood
- Humor changes brain chemistry
- Go APE with your humor where A stands for Awareness, P stands for Permission and E stands for Fun!

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