Monday, May 14, 2012

The Boss Laughs



After dropping her children off at day care, she went to work, walked into a conference room meeting, took one look at her boss in a brightly patterned shirt and spontaneously spouted “Is it pajama day today?”

I asked her if everyone laughed.  She said NO ONE laughed.  Complete silence.  Until her boss retorted “Well I should have worn my bottoms too.”  At which point EVERYONE laughed.

One of my students told us this story as I was lecturing about laughter in the work place.

Statistics show who it is that controls laughter at the office.  And it’s almost always the boss.  The controlled laughter anyway, the laughter that happens between superiors and subordinates.   It’s clearly symbolic of the power hierarchy.

Statistics show that it’s the employee who laughs at the boss’s joke, but it’s virtually never the opposite – the boss laughing at the employee’s joke.  As the above example shows.  Of course in that case, it was even more telling, because the joke was on the boss.  No one laughed until he poked fun at himself, giving everyone permission to do the same.  You could call it polite, or you could call it control.  Pretty tight control I’d say.

In Laughter Yoga no one holds the power except of course the laughter leader.  But power isn’t our game.  Bonding, joy, health, and especially at work, stress release and waking up the brain, is what we’re after.  Participants are all equals in a laughter yoga session.  All equals sharing the joy of some good hearty laughter.

Photo:  Stock.xchnge

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