I'm Adi Ignatius.

I'm Alison Beard, and this is the HPR Ideacast.

So, Alison, I think leaders often wonder whether and how they can be funny at work with their teams.

I mean, I think there's something great about humor.

It brings us together.

It's also risky, right?

I mean, one person's joke is another person's offense.

Tell me about you.

Do you try to be funny at work with your teams?

I would say that I don't try to be funny.

I try to be amusing.

I think you do a really good job of, you know,

sort of throwing in a joke once in a while,

witty banter, the occasional Russian accent.

I appreciate this very much.

But I tend to bring levity to situations with maybe some telling of funny stories or self-deprecation.

And I think it's a really hard thing. We've published a lot of research showing that humor can be used for good in leadership, but as you say, it's very hard

to thread the needle sometimes. And look, there's the image we all have of Steve Correll in the office,

you know, the boss who tries to be funny, who never is, who crosses lines,

and really accomplishes the opposite of what he's trying to do. So there's a right way to do it,

there's a wrong way to do it. The conversation, though, that I had with our guests, his belief

is that even people who feel like, you know, I'm not funny, they can tap a kind of funniness within themselves

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