Lead With Humor
Leading with Humor and Using Self-Deprecation
A great example of leading with humor happened at a technology exchange conference. A senior executive, in the opening keynote, emphasized the need to take risks, push the barriers of technology and make the incredible credible. For any leading-edge technology firm to excel, he said, risks had to be taken and mistakes tolerated. To illustrate, he told three anecdotes about errors he had made during his career. At the end of each story, he took a raw egg out of his pocket, put it on the palm of his hand, and smashed it on his forehead—giving the audience the ultimate visual of “egg on his face.” Opening the conference in this way, and adding in a little self-deprecation, illustrated his message and made him more relatable to the audience.
You don’t have to wait for a big speaking event to use these concepts. They can be used in everyday business communication! Watch the following video to see a few examples of how humor was used during a safety audit in South America! Watch my use of pauses, accents, and body language when telling stories. We’ll get to those techniques in later blogs!). What are your experiences with this topic?…Comments welcomed:
This is a series of blog articles and brief videos on “Finding the Funny – Learn the Step-By-Step-Process to Develop and Deliver Humor & Funny Stories & Incorporate into Serious Content.” The blogs are excerpts from my e-learning course (see link on right) which includes:
- Over 16 lessons
- Over 8 hours of video instruction
- Activities and quizzes to complement each lesson
- Downloadable worksheets and templates
- 12 month access to course updates and additions
Please feel free to share with professional speakers, public speakers, trainers…anyone who stands in front of audiences who wants to make them laugh or bring some lightheartedness into serious content. Help me out by “liking,” “subscribing.” and “sharing” on the various social media platforms. To help me out, please make sure you “subscribe” (right-hand column) so you do not miss any of these weekly blog articles. Please feel free to comment on this blog-site and on social-media sites, and share with those who will benefit from them.
Copyright © MMXX by David R. Hill
