George Gilbert’s Motivational Humor

The other day 11^th seeded George Mason University knocked off the number 1 seed University of Connecticut in overtime in the NCAA tournament to reach the final four. This was a huge upset. ESPN.com’s Andy Katz said, “This was the greatest run ever to the Final Four.” Others have said it is the biggest upset in the tournament’s history. Before the tournament many felt that George Mason University wasn’t a good enough team and shouldn’t have been chosen to participate in the tournament. Obviously they have proven them wrong. But what makes this team different than the rest. They are having fun!

George Mason’s coach Jim Larranaga made sure that his players continue to have fun during this remarkable run. A run that has seen this team upset sixth seed Michigan St.,  third seed University of North Carolina, and seventh seed Wichita St. Just before they took the court to face the University of Connecticut, Larranaga reminded his players they were from the CAA — not the Colonial Athletic Association, but from the “Connecticut Assassins Association.” The players broke out in laughter.  Before they played North Carolina coach Larranaga told the team North Carolina is “Superman and we’re Kryptonite.” The coach’s goal was to keep the players loose and not stress out for the games.

Does this mean coach Larranga and his team isn’t taking these games seriously? Just the opposite they are taking them very seriously. Being able to find fun and humor in your endeavors can free you up to handle the momentous task at hand. I see a coach like Larranga get his team to overachieve because he reminds them to have fun and then I have seen Bobby Knight’s teams on occasion underachieve. I sometimes think coach Knight’s style of intimidation backfires. I think his players tighten up because they are afraid of coach Knight. I don’t think we will ever see Coach Larranga throw a chair across the court or choke a player for making a mistake.

There were other teams in the tournament that succumbed to the pressure. After being up by 9 points with 3:27 seconds left in the game and leading until the final 10 seconds, Gonzaga lost their bid to go to the final four for the first time in school history. It was obvious that Gonzaga’s players started to feel the pressure in the final moments of the game. They couldn’t score and turned the ball over to give up the lead. With two seconds left Gonzaga’s Adam Morrison overwhelmed with emotion started crying before the game was over. He is a great player and will indeed have a great career ahead whether he stays in school or decides to go to the NBA. Obviously no one enjoys losing, but maybe Gonzaga who has never been to the final four should have focused on having more fun throughout the tournament. I believe they put too much pressure on themselves and in the end they tightened up and couldn’t finish unlike George Mason University whose team was able to not make mistakes and close out the game with a win.

Just when we need to focus most is when we tend to loose our focus. Why? Because we get too serious, thus impeding our concentration. The harder we try, the harder it is to concentrate, choking off any chance we had of accomplishing our goal. This is the time to find something to laugh at. Humor and laughter can help bring back our focus and see the challenge in a different light. Joking that the George Mason team were the Connecticut Assassinations Association helped lighten the fact that they were going to play what many pundits picked as the team to win the tournament. Humor in this case enabled the team to see the opponent as someone that can be beaten.

Sometimes we take ourselves too seriously. We let our stress beat us before our opponent. It doesn’t matter whether it’s on the basketball court, at school, in business or any other aspect of life. We too often forget to have fun. We forget to laugh. Because we get too serious. We tighten up. Coach Larranga used humor to, as he said, “to keep his kids loose.”  When I find myself starting to tighten up before a speech I remind myself as I am walking up to have fun. I know if I’m not having fun I am not going to perform to the best of my ability.

“The thing I hate about an argument is that it always interrupts a discussion.” - G. K. Chesterton

My parents were in show-business for more than thirty years. One of the secrets to their longevity was that they had a rule that they lived by. They never discussed what happened on stage immediately after the show. They would wait untill the next day before they discussed what went wrong. They understood that talking about a mistake backstage while they were full of adrenalin from the performance wasn’t in their best interest. This gave them a cool-down period so when they did talk about the previous night’s show they could be more objective about it. They also realized that many of the mistakes weren’t very serious and many times funny. They were now able to laugh about something rather than argue about it. Many of the mistakes got a laugh and so they would put them into the routine making the act even funnier. If they had discussed those mistakes immediately after they would not have been so objective. They might have blamed each other for the mistakes and therefore neither the act nor the marriage would have lasted. Many acts broke up because they were fighting about the performance as soon as they walked off stage.

Next time a mistake occurs at work, if at all possible, don’t discuss it immediately while tempers flare. Take a cooling off period so that you can discuss the incident rather than argue about it.

After speaking to Axicon World Imports from Canada they wrote me and said they were going to make “laughter a part of our job description.” What a great idea, humor and laughter as part of a company’s job description

More and more companies are incorporating humor into the work place, companies such as Southwest Airlines, AT&T, General Electric and even the IRS. Lets face it, if the IRS can incorporate humor into the work place then any company can incorporate humor. But why are these companies using humor? To motivate their employees.

Harvey Mackay once said in an interview in Success Magazine that fun was the most important thing to keep his employees motivated. He said, “We manufacture fun, and there are a gazillion laughs around the plant all the time.” Good advice from a man who runs Mackay Envelopes Corp., a company with 550 employees, that makes 20 million envelopes a day, and has sales of $85 Million a year.

“The most thoroughly wasted of all days is that on which one has not laughed.” - Chamfort

Experts tell us that as children we used to laugh on the average of 150 times a day, up to 400 times a day, but by the age of thirty-five we laugh on the average of 15 to 17 times a day. What has happened? We take laughter for granted. Doctor Albert Schweitzer didn’t take laughter for granted. When Albert Schweitzer had his hospital in the middle of the African jungle, he made a point of having dinner with his staff every night so that he could tell them a joke or a humorous story. Something to make them laugh because he knew if he could make his staff laugh they could handle the stress of working under such terrible conditions, day after day, with so many sick people. Albert Schwitzer said, “Laughter is the nutrient of the spirit.”

I don’t have to go to the African jungle to find stress, But I do understand the importance of laughter. I suggest you make a point of finding more humor in your life so that you don’t waste another day.

Do you feel hopeless? All stressed out? Are you fatigued? Don’t want to get out of bed to go to work? If so, you might be suffering from burnout.

Dr. Hunter “Patch” Adams describes burnout in the medical industry as “a state in which people are unfulfilled by their work and are insufficiently rejuvenated. They find themselves giving too much for too long; then something snuffs out the joy and thrill of helping others.” 

Dr. Beverly Potter say’s, “Burnout is a malaise of the spirit in which motivation, that mysterious force that gets us moving, is damaged or even destroyed. Job burnout could be called job depression.”
 

 So how do we overcome burnout?

I believe that you have to acknowledge the fact that you have to make some changes. When you feel burned out you are in rut. In order to get out of a rut you have to make a conscious effort. Do something different. Don’t try to make big changes at first that may fail. Quite often when we are down we try to do too much, making us feel even more hopeless. Start with small changes where you can have some success. Celebrate your success. When something doesn’t work don’t get discouraged look at it as a learning process.

Incorporate humor and laughter into your life. When we are suffering from burnout we tend to take everything too seriously. This is when you need to find more and more humor in your life. Not only will the laughter help reduce your stress, but humor can give you a different perspective. Make a game out of your work. Look up jokes that apply to what you are trying to do. Think how your favorite sit-com would handle this project. Remember those old “I love Lucy” shows where Lucy and Ethel would work in a chocolate factory and couldn’t keep up with the assembly line. How would they respond to what you are trying to do?

I find myself getting into a rut when I start trying too hard and taking myself too seriously. Putting a little fun and humor into the task at hand helps to alleviate the tension that stifles my creativity and the ability to accomplish my goal.

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“If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.” -  John Cleese

Creating a fun working environment can lead to more creativity and productivity. When employees enjoy their job and aren’t all stressed out they are more apt to get things done.According to Dr. David Abramis at Cal State Long Beach “people who have fun at work are more creative, more productive, get along better with co-workers and are better decision makers. They also call in sick less often.”

When I worked for a company that didn’t encourage fun, there was more stress in the office, employees didn’t work as a team and I found myself less motivated to get things done. Others called in sick frequently. Getting out of bed in the morning was much more difficult because there was no incentive other than money to go to the office.  

Creating a fun work environment isn’t difficult. It starts with respect. Do you treat your employees with respect? Are you approachable? Do you create an environment where they can approach you with a problem without fear of negative consequences? When employees don’t feel they are respected the motivation to be productive plummets.

Humor and fun on the job don’t have to interfere with productivity. As long as the humor and fun are part of the subject at hand it helps motivate employees. A laugh now and then can help reduce the stress of a major project that gets bogged down, and change perspective. When the team is trying too hard and the mood is tense try lightening it up. Do a David Letterman’s “top ten” list on the project to break up the tension. Encourage the list to be outrageous. Not only will this reduce the stress, but when you look at the list there may be something on there that might inspire a solution to what was creating the tension in the first place.