Bringing Comic Relief to Play in Workplace : Lecturers Are Serious About Their Crusade to Get the Fringe Benefits of Fun on the Job

The world, at least on television, appears chock-full of comic relief, what with Bill Cosby enshrined as the patron saint of ratings, nearly all nighttime talk shows entrusted to comedians, the networks’ fall line-ups dominated by sitcoms and Joan Rivers set to go on the air as an alternative to the 11 o’clock news, Nightline and Johnny Carson.

Likewise in publishing, perennially best-selling humorists such as Erma Bombeck and Art Buchwald have been joined at the top end of the sales charts by such literary yuksters as Garrison Keillor, Lewis Grizzard and Roy Blount Jr.

In film, comedies such as “Back to the Future,” “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Ghostbusters” have ranked as top-grossing movies in recent years.

Comedy clubs have become one of the nation’s growth industries. And even Broadway has expanded its lighter fare by starring comedians such as Lily Tomlin and Whoopi Goldberg in one-woman shows.

Humor is clearly having a heyday--everyplace but where people spend most of their energies: the workplace.

But even the country’s citadels of seriousness are beginning to be assaulted by corporate humor crusaders, three of whom recently gave presentations in the Los Angeles area:

--Ritch Davidson, senior “vice emperor” of Playfair, a Berkeley-based international consulting firm that provides “playfulness trainings” for more than 100,000 individuals each year. When it was based in Pennsylvania, Playfair was called “The Games Preserve,” because its intention was to preserve playfulness for adults. But according to Davidson, the name “Games Preserve” resulted in “strange calls in the middle of the night--people wondering if we were some sort of weird, X-rated summer camp for adults or else people who would call up and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got a moose in my backyard.’ ”

--Terry Paulson, a former clinical psychologist who lectures on the value of humor and other subjects for corporations, also presenting workshops through his Los Angeles firm Humorworks. Paulson used to give assertiveness training seminars through a company he founded called “The Assertion Training Institute”--until he discovered that “the people who were the least assertive weren’t assertive enough to call up.”

--Gabe Cohen, a Canadian-born actor who is one of Paulson’s Humorworks partners and a Second City comedy troupe veteran now starring in Pizza Hut commercials.

The strange thing about all these humor lecturers is that a good deal of what they have to say on the subject is not funny at all. In fact, they note that the reason they’re in business is a fairly grim one indeed.

Consider Davidson as he addressed a convention of the National Employee Services and Recreation Assn. on board the Queen Mary in Long Beach.

‘Good for You’

“Laughter not only feels good, it actually is good for you,” he said, unwittingly suggesting his talk might be as much fun as cod liver oil, marathon running or Brussels sprouts. Then, in semi-scholarly fashion, Davidson outlined a few of the physiological benefits some researchers believe laughter creates in T-cell counts and endorphin production.

By their initial reactions, Davidson’s standing-room-only crowd of more than a thousand people didn’t seem too thrilled. But when he demonstrated that laughter and playfulness are forms of “kinesthetic communication”--by having his listeners stand up, throw up their arms as if they had just won Olympic gold medals and yell “I’m depressed”--the room was instantly convulsed with laughter.

Why was this madness so effective at making people laugh?

As Davidson explained, getting somewhat serious again, the audience had just experienced “a meltdown of the mind, a disorientation of the left brain hemisphere.”

In other words, the bodies that threw themselves into victory postures had physically experienced a feeling of “I feel great” (feelings are a function of the right brain) while their mouths screamed “I’m depressed” (speech is governed by the left brain). Hence the mental double-take.

Only Logic Developed

Davidson went on to describe how the world’s typically humor-free education systems are great at developing the logical left brain, to the detriment of the fun-loving, creative right brain. By the time students get to college, he said, they’ve entered “veritable temples of left-brain worship.”

In addition, Playfair’s vice emperor observed that infants come into the world thinking that it’s a place “populated by giants, smiling and dedicated to making them happy. Babies are what we call inverse paranoids, people who think the world is out to do them nothing but good.”

As a result of believing the world is limitless and out to help them, Davidson feels babies experience largely positive lives--until they become programmed to expect negative results.

He emphasized, however, that he is not recommending adults become more childish, merely that they “get back in touch with celebrating life.”

This notion, of course, brings out the critics who tell him “I’m not a stand-up comedian. I can’t even tell a joke.”

A Change of Atmosphere

To which Davidson said he often replies, “You don’t have to entertain the people you work with. All you have to do is create an environment where playfulness and creativity are rewarded. You don’t have to create a carnival atmosphere.”

That, however, did not stop the speaker from doing so himself.

He put the audience through a few games designed to build camaraderie and team spirit rather than competition, including an intensely physical and ridiculous version of the childhood game, “Rock, Paper, Scissors.”

All this noticeably loosened up the crowd. But Davidson’s most successful (and hilarious) attempt at P. T. Barnum antics came when he invited anyone in the audience who wanted a standing ovation to win one by simply standing up and shouting, “I want a standing ovation.” At any time.

He then continued his talk, only to be regularly interrupted by crazed members of the audience hollering, as instructed, “I want a standing ovation. “ And getting them.

Now, this may not translate as much more than sophomoric silliness on paper, but for those who witnessed their friends and business associates standing on chairs and screaming for public adulation, it was hysterical--a running gag that completely delighted the crowd. So much so that by the time Davidson finished his talk, the group rewarded him, too, with a standing ovation.

The idea that human beings are born playful and fun-loving but have learned to suppress these natural tendencies was also stressed by Terry Paulson and Gabe Cohen at their recent daylong Humorworks seminar at the Beverly Hilton.

A Dulled Sense

There, about 20 people from various lines of work heard Paulson remind them of assorted warnings they might have heard early in their lives, lines that collectively helped dull their senses of humor: “Get serious.” “Wipe that smile off your face.” “What’s so funny?” And worse.

“The end result is that by the time you grew up and became an adult, you were were taught to take the edge off your sense of humor,” he said, adding that it is indeed possible to regain that edge but most people leave it to chance instead of actively developing it.

Assuming it’s been missing in action or perhaps merely on hiatus, how do you get your humor back?

Paulson, who believes the world now requires “individuals who have both substance and style,” suggested his students make a practice of clipping cartoons, collecting and writing down anecdotes, increasing the number of patently outrageous stunts in their lives and practicing exercises to loosen up their potentially comedic reflexes.

Learning to Deflect

One such exercise participants experienced at the seminar involved learning to deflect criticism a la Ronald Reagan by using quick wit and exaggeration.

Reagan, Paulson reminded his class, became known as “the Teflon president” because his sense of humor has allowed very few criticisms to stick to or get under his skin. The issue of the President’s advanced age, for example, became a non-issue in Paulson’s view because Reagan deftly turned the whole thing around with lines like, “I promised not to make Mondale’s lack of maturity and experience an issue in this campaign.”

In order for the students to undergo a similar sort of attack, Paulson instructed them to write a list of their favorite personal qualities. He then asked them to find a partner, who was to then take that list and assume the opposite was true about the person, offering heated criticism to that effect.

The student’s job was to avoid getting logical and mounting a powerful defense, which could imply that the criticism really mattered and deserved retaliation. Instead, the task was to accept the criticism and exaggerate it, with as much good humor as possible.

The result, Paulson explained, would be that the criticism would be deflected (by not being taken seriously) or become more acceptable (by having the tension surrounding it defused with humor).

Cohen, who coaches two stand-up comics, also offered the group exercises of the type that improvisational actors and comedians use to develop and sharpen their reflexes.

One such workout, called “Conscience,” demonstrated the humor available in merely telling the complete truth, which is often censored by the mind. At Cohen’s behest, four Humorworks participants assumed assigned roles: woman job interviewer, woman job interviewer’s conscience, attractive male job seeker and attractive male job seeker’s conscience.

Suffice it to say that the results of the four’s unrestrained conversations spontaneously sent their observers into relentless laughter; the routine also demonstrated the comedic possibilities available from speaking the unadulterated truth.

Which is not always the comedic weapon of choice, in Paulson’s opinion. Throughout the day, he repeatedly stressed that decidedly different approaches are called on in different situations, a general rule of thumb being that sarcasm and bottom-line truth can be increased with the degree to which one has established friendship.

“What about dealing with people who appear to have no senses of humor at all?” he was asked.

“That’s a good question. How do you deal with warped people?” Paulson answered, repeating the question and initially appearing to be struggling for a reply.

He thought for a fast second, then asked the group, “Who’s the only person we can really control?”

Just as fast, the group responded, “ourselves.”

To which Paulson shot back, “And even that’s in question on Mondays.”