Do You Need Funny in Your Presentation?

This is top of mind for me at the moment. It is also something that I have been asked about many times in coaching and group settings. I find it to be one of the hardest things to write about or to answer.

Humour played a huge part in my upbringing. My mother’s side of the family was continually telling jokes and cracking one-liners. Mum and her family emigrated to New Zealand when she was 16 years old, so I grew up soaking in British comedy.

I don’t actually consider myself funny. I am quick to laugh and to point out the funny side of things. Something often comes out of my mouth that makes the people around me laugh, although that is virtually always instinctive, impulsive and spontaneous. Usually, I surprise myself as much as anyone else!

So, I struggle when people ask me for advice on humour in their presentation, pitch or talk.

This is because I do think humour is a powerful thing. 
I have often used it to raise morale, break the tension, bind a team under pressure, and generally make people feel more relaxed.
-Nothing is more relaxing than a good laugh!

Tips

I can’t tell you how to be funny. Your idea of funny and my idea of funny is probably quite different anyway. And if I can’t explain why people react with laughter when something comes out of my mouth, then I can hardly explain how anyone else can do it.

I can tell you a few things I have learned so far on the subject and what I am doing to try to learn some more.

1. Don’t Try

My first advice is don’t “Try to be funny”. I don’t know what it is, but forced humour is never funny unless the point is to be satirical. Otherwise, it just comes across as either desperate or inauthentic.

Don’t get me wrong, I certainly have looked at a presentation and thought, this is a bit serious. I need to lighten the mood here, and I will put something in that might get a laugh at a certain point.

But my point is that I am not taking a big swing. My goal isn’t to make everyone roll on the floor laughing.

My goal is to lighten the mood and create an environment, a moment, where people can laugh if they want to.

2. Be Authentic

This follows on from the previous advice on don’t try. Be authentic to yourself and your own sense of humour or wit.

Don’t try to guess what the audience wants. Trying to figure out what the audience wants and attempting to give that to them is one of the biggest mistakes in humour.

Say what you find amusing. Sometimes, it will hit with the audience, and sometimes, it won’t. Just remember that it will never hit with everyone. It doesn’t have to. It only needs to hit with a few people, and their reaction will do the rest.

3. Be Surprising

Again, this is part of the previous points. One of the reasons that you don’t want to ‘figure out’ what the audience wants is that if you do that, you are likely to come up with a standard, expected line.

Humour is born from the unexpected. A different frame, a new way of looking at something, or a situation people have never considered.

Think of the punch of the joke, like gunpowder. You want to keep your powder dry until it is time to light the fuse.

Too often, I see people telegraphing their humour in the set-up. You want to avoid this at all costs. Set-ups are important, but you must practice some deception to get the impact in the punch.

4. Be Confident

Often, I will say something I think is amusing and laugh at what I just said. Effectively, I have the confidence to laugh at my own jokes. I am not being manipulative or arrogant. I am being confidently authentic.

“I find this amusing, and I will laugh at it. You can laugh, too, or not. I don’t mind.”

I am confident in inviting others to laugh with me.

If you come across as desperate, forceful, hopeful, or timid, you may get a laugh, but I think when this happens, the audience does not relax in the way they do when you are confident. At best, they give a nervous, tense laugh, and the audience will not even realise why.

5. Be Aware

I have a joke that I share sometimes when I am talking about my Puzzle Theory of Structure in a workshop or coaching session. But the joke is both rude and somewhat religious. It illustrates my point really well, and although I enjoy it, I often will not share it because of the potential for it to offend.

A misplaced element of humour that goes wrong is far more damaging than the benefit derived from if it goes well. So, if in doubt, skip it. This goes for both the content and the environment (what you say and where you say it).

Awareness of the emotion in the room is a skill that you may have to work on. If you don’t have that skill, then err on the side of caution.

A couple of decades ago, I went down to Wellington for the funeral of one of my best friends, who I hadn’t seen for years. There were a lot of people there. His family, whom he was estranged from, got up and spoke. They talked about Nathan in a way that wasn’t really the person I knew.

I got up and told a few funny stories of the things we got up to in our early twenties. Laughter is often the gateway that enables people to connect with other emotions, such as grief, and it was the perfect thing to do at that time.

But if you can’t read the emotion of the room, it is easy to make a mistake and make things worse rather than better.

Joke Structure

There is a structure to humour, as there is to any writing. Simply, there is a set-up and a punch. The set-up creates an expectation in the audience, and the punch switches something around and changes the situation from one thing to something else.

This is pretty much how all humour works, from knock-knock jokes to elaborate stories.

I don’t want to go into more depth on Joke Structure, as I don’t feel qualified at this point, but I recommend Greg Dean’s work on it if you are interested. I have done his Udemy course, and I found it very good.

Learning Through Experience

In my teens and early twenties, I told jokes a lot. I collected jokes and stories to tell. I travelled by myself in Europe, and I credit this ability to tell stories to the many friends I made and the experiences I had. -This was all before the internet!

If you want to get better at telling jokes or stories, then the only way to do that is to tell jokes and stories. Think about how you will tell the story and then tell it at the next opportunity.

Patience in a social setting is important. You only want to tell the story when the moment is right. Don’t let your enthusiasm get the better of you so you railroad the conversation just to fit your story or joke in. -I know because I have done it.

Be patient, wait for the right moment, and when it comes, tell your story at the pace you need to tell it. Don’t rush it. Use whatever excitement or emphasis is needed. But think of it as an invitation to others to join in the amusement.

And then afterwards, think about how your story landed, whether it made them laugh or confused them. And if it confused them, what was it that confused them? When you figure that out, try again in a different conversation with different people and assess the results there.

Currently, I am performing in an Improv show. I am doing that to challenge myself to live up to the lessons I have written here.

Reflecting on the last performance, I was very happy with my spontaneity and confidence in the solo stuff I did on stage, but I realised I was lacking in the group work. I was not offering elements to my co-performers and was slow at picking up what they offered. -This will come with practice.

I have my stand-up debut at the local comedy club in a few weeks time. Truthfully, I am writing this article as much for myself as for you. I have written my set. It is quite personal, I suppose, but I find it amusing. At this point, I have no idea if anyone else will!

But I believe if I keep the 5 points in mind that we have discussed today, I will do okay. In any case, I will learn something from the experience, and I will be sure to share that with you in a future issue.

Snippets is a section where I take some interesting text I have come across in the previous week and comment on it.

I love the TV series Silicon Valley. It is hilarious but with many illuminating ideas.
In one episode, the character Action Jack says:

That really struck me. Each of those is a different game. Played on the same field but with different goals and different rules.

The different characters in that business were playing different games. One was focused on the platform, one on the algorithm, and another on the brand, while Jack, the CEO, was focused on the stock price.

This resulted in each taking actions that were consistent with the game they were playing but often had negative consequences for the other players playing their other games.

This is important for the Compelling Communicator because we want to be aware of the different games and the different focus of the various people in our audience.

We don’t have to speak to everyone’s focus, but we do need to be clear about the focus we have on our message and the need to re-focus the audience so they understand our message in the context we intend it.

It may then be helpful, or necessary, to illustrate how our message and focus may impact the different ‘games’ at play.

If we advocate an action that impacts them somewhat negatively, they will likely ignore or avoid those actions. But if we can show how the benefits of those actions outweigh different negatives, there is a far greater chance that people will take your recommended action.

So think about the game you are playing, and ask yourself what are the other games at play, and how do these aid or impair each other?

Unpacking Wisdom is a weekly section where I dive into a famous (or not so famous) quote and explore how this can apply to the Compelling Communicator.

I am in awe of the writings of Miyamoto Musashi, and I studied his Go Rin No Sho (Book of Five Rings) as a teenager when Martial Arts was the central focus of my life. His writings mean far more to me now, decades later.

This quote tells us that our own experiences build our character and are the true source of value we bring to others. But this experience does not come easy. Or rather, the experiences that do come easy are common experiences that generate common value.

If you want to create extraordinary results, you need to bring extraordinary value, and you can only create that value through extraordinary experiences. This means that you should seek out experiences that others avoid. You should jump on opportunities that fill you with fear. Not in a reckless way, but not in a timid way either.

This mindset has me currently performing Improv on stage in front of a paying audience despite having a fraction of the experience in this area that others on the stage have.
I am guaranteed to learn something.

My learning might be embarrassing in the moment. It might be triumphant in the moment. I think the key is to look beyond the moment and value the experience and what you have learned regardless of the immediate outcome.

As mentioned, I will also debut my stand-up comedy at the local comedy club in a few weeks. The thought scares me. I don’t know if what I have written is funny. I also know that a big part of the success or failure of any set will depend on the audience that night.

I don’t need to do this. I have no real reason to do this other than it scares me, and it is an uncommon experience that I have the opportunity to explore and learn from.

I think it is also important to realise that the lessons do not simply come from the event itself. The lessons come from the moment of commitment. The mental preparation. The preparation of the material. The practice.

All are rich with lessons to learn from and discover new abilities and the application of current abilities.

The stunning artwork of Miyamoto Musashi courtesy of DDJVIGO 

What I am up to this week…

Professionally:

Back at work with Instructional Design at Epic Learning. Lots on.

Recreationally:

Enjoyed a great Filmmakers’ networking event the other day. I want to spend more time with energised, creative people!

What I am reading:

Still reading some John Milton fiction and going through Alex Hormozi’s $100m Offers again.

What I am watching:

I finished watching The Traitors NZ, a TV series on Three Now. I enjoyed it too much and am avoiding watching any other reality TV because it always sucks me in!