Open-Hearted “Self-Facing” Humor Builds Bridges
by Steve Bhaerman as seen in The Huffington Post
When we lovingly laugh in our own face, we invite others to drop their defenses. This facilitates trust and communication, and liberates energy to move forward in beneficial collaboration.
As a baseball fan growing up in New York City, one of my great baseball heroes as a child was Casey Stengel, who was manager of the Yankees, and later the Mets. I remember him as an old man, a long-time beloved figure in New York. That wasn’t always the case. When he was a rookie, the fans in New York disliked him. In fact, they booed him loudly whenever he came on the field. Then one day, Casey Stengel walked to the plate to bat, and as usual the fans booed him. Only this time, he tipped his cap and a little sparrow flew out from under his cap.
Everyone in the ballpark cheered, and he was never booed again. Think about it. One playful gesture changing the hearts of 20,000 … New Yorkers! So of course the lesson is, if you’re going to flip somebody the bird — make it a real bird.
Apparently, Stengel had seen the sparrow when he was in the outfield, and impulsively scooped it up. He had a tough crowd to impress, but it certainly worked.
Another individual who used “self-facing” laughter to great advantage was Abraham Lincoln. In the midst of a debate, an opponent called him two-faced. Pointing to his homely mug, Lincoln told the audience, “Now I ask you. If I were two-faced would I be using THIS ONE?”
If we stop and consider how much of our formal interactions in business — particularly with colleagues we don’t know that well — are about saving or losing face, when we can use self-effacing or self-facing humor to release the tension, we benefit everyone in the room. George Burns once joked, “Honesty and sincerity. If you can fake those, you’ve got it made.”
And … as we pretty much all realize, most of us can tell the real sincerity from the fake.
A joke that is genuinely on oneself, and not meant to manipulate, can bring everyone in the room closer. I once read a story about a manager who had the unpleasant…
For full story go to http://huff.to/1Kj1Z9g