Humour is a unique human phenomenon, associated with the human capacity to laugh.
Humour gives us additional responses to unfavourable situations other than our usual ones viz. fight or flight.
It allows us to stay with the situation without triggering a fight flight response and arrive at inimitable insights that diffuse the tension.
The office environment is rife with stress and a culture of appropriate humour can help detoxify the air.
Imagine a workplace that is developing a culture where people work only when supervised!
An HR trainer told this joke-“My boss calls me ‘The computer’ not because of my calculation skills but because I go to sleep when left unattended for 15 minutes.”
Encourage a work culture that nurtures humour and see the difference.
Like many of my generation, I grew up on a steady nutritious spread of home cooked food and fulltime participation in sports and field games. Both of these resulted in a healthy body but the spirit was nurtured, not just by generous lessons from moral science and community living, but majorly by an addictive reading habit which unfailingly included the Reader’s Digest. As I knew it, the digest was a wholesome periodical catering to all minds. Two USPs of this elegant magazine printed in book form were ‘Laughter- the best medicine’ and ‘Humour in uniform’. In all honesty, I must say that both these columns were responsible for instilling in me a reasonably good sense of humour, which in my professional life as a teacher has given me some unforgettable precious classroom moments. But most importantly, I realized that humour had significance beyond the personal realm, a learning that was reinforced when I embarked on my journey as a consultant.
It has been estimated that on an average people spend one-third of their life at work or about 90,000 hours at work in a lifetime. The workplace is a unique setting where individuals from diverse milieu gather together motivated by two major factors- earning their bread (and butter if possible) and self- development and actualization. Such a setting of competing interests is bound to have its own stresses and conflicts which sometimes may be long lasting, but mostly are short lived, situational and a result of some serious over reactions. The ceaseless spurts of these, over a period of time can be debilitating to the health of both, the individual and the organization
Management Science has concerned itself largely with the study of organizational behaviour in a bid to create stress free, friendly happy workplaces with a view to increase the productivity and to encourage individuals to remain motivated, even in the most routine and mundane tasks. This is not the responsibility of the organization alone but also of all individuals working in that particular workspace. It is here that humour and laughter play a big role. Laughter is the most obvious outward expression of humour and has spawned tomes of research on aspects like frequency of laughter, styles of laughter, gender based differences on what tickles the funny bone and many more.
The world renowned Mayo Clinic has documented the short term and long term benefits of humour and laughter. The short term benefits include stimulation to many internal organs, activating and relieving stress response, stimulating blood circulation and muscle relaxation. The long term benefits are improvement in the immune system, relieving pain, increasing personal satisfaction and improved mood and self -esteem.
Laughter is good for the soul too. Science and religion both recognize the impact of laughter. No wonder Martin Luther King Jr. once said- “It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.” We believe cleanliness is next to Godliness, so why not accord the same exalted status to humour and laughter, especially when they come in with all the advantages enumerated above!. Let us all, in the interest of all develop a robust sense of humour and remember to laugh for some time every day.
This month onwards the newsletter will include a small humorous snippet or a joke-something to evoke laughter. This will be our small step towards good health for all.
Happy Reading...
Sachin Joshi, CEO of Greenovoc Specialty Coatings Pvt. Ltd. is frequently invited to speak at conferences and workshops at National & International level.
On June 22, 2024 he participated in the International Conference on Polymer Chemistry (ICPOLC-24) at Pune where he presented a paper titled-‘Heat Insulation Temperature Reducing cum Anti- Corrosion Protective Coating for Metal Roofing.’
The conference was organized by the Society for Education (SFE)
A snail was slithering along the road one day when he was attacked by two turtles. Later the cops asked” Did you get a good look at the turtles who did this to you?
“No, it all happened too fast” replied the snail!
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