Humor is Good. Until it Isn’t

If you're stuck in a negotiation, or are involved in a situation that seems to be unnecessarily difficult, humor might be just what the doctor ordered. But there's a catch.

Once upon a time, I had a CFO client who was overtly hostile.

During the prep stages of the negotiation he went so far as to have all kinds of rules designed to limit the contact with his reports we needed to prep. It was a tough environment to work in.

Then we got to the negotiations and he showed up (uninvited) to the third negotiating session.

He walked into the room in the middle of us working on an issue that should have been difficult and hostile. Instead we had drawings on a white board and were laughing our way through it.

And what happened then?

Well, "in Whoville they say - that the CFO's small heart grew three sizes that day." Literally every issue he had just melted away.

So, humor is good . . .

unless it isn't.

And when it goes bad it's often because of the speaker's failure to recognize the power dynamics inherent in conversational humor.

So if you find yourself in a situation where you're trying to use humor and it isn't landing -- or worse, it's causing harm -- consider whether you're reinforcing uncomfortable power dynamics.

The problem with humor that's based on (or fails to consider) power imbalances is that it can land as sarcasm, and will trigger the same internal response. This can be especially tricky because the other person may laugh, but that laughter is not because you're humor works, it's because you have power.

Think about a job interview for a job you really want. You'll laugh at almost anything the interviewer says that you perceive as them trying to be funny. You might even be offended, but you probably won't show it.

So my best advice about using hashtag#humor as a negotiator would be to develop your ability to read the room first. And by this I mean to deep read the room.

Deep reading a room goes beyond the superficial signals like laughing and looks for the subtle stuff -- fidgeting, slight eye rolling, a lifted brow, blushing, looking slightly away, aggressive or submissive posture, subtle vocal tone differences, bored expressions, even slightly longer than normal blinks -- the small stuff.

Humor can be a powerful tool, but without the ability to read the room, it can easily do more harm than good.