In the last several months I’ve engaged in dozens of discussions with trainers from virtually every field of education about how (or if) to incorporate humor. We’ve talked about the relative merits of games, stories, and jokes; shared anecdotes of personal successes and failures; and also discussed the perennial question about whether entertainment augments or hinders the trainer’s ability to convey material. Based on those conversations, it’s evident that all of us are sincerely trying to discover the best way to provide necessary training to our audiences. That said, all of us have very strong opinions about our particular approaches to training in general and the use of humor specifically.
I remain convinced that the intelligent incorporation of humor into training and educational content is the single most important quality that separates excellent training (and trainers) from merely acceptable ones. My company was founded on that principle, and I’m certain it is a large part of the reason that each of the last seven years has been more successful than the last. I don’t believe there is only one way to effectively incorporate humor into your training. But until someone devises a more effective way to surprise, delight, engage, and enrapture an audience, I am certain that the humorous trainer will continue to find more success than the one who chooses not to use any…
…As long as it’s done correctly. While there are many different ways a trainer might use humor as a training tool, there are some core concepts that are true across the board. I’m hoping this article will help you understand how to approach the idea of bringing humor into your training. How you decide to do so is completely up to you, but if you follow these first two guidelines (and stay as far away as possible from the last one), your efforts will be met with a more attentive audience, better reviews, and greater comprehension of your material.
- The amount of humor you need is extremely small. When I talk with other trainers who know my company and how we operate, one of the most common questions they ask is, “How much humor do I need to use?” The answer to that, fortunately, is “Not very much at all.” My company has some training products on very serious subjects—preventing corporate theft, for example, or sexual harassment—where the amount of humor we use is probably less than 5 percent of the course content, because we never want to belittle the importance of the subject matter. But that 5 percent—or 2 percent or even 1 percent—is enough to give the training a less didactic feel than it would have otherwise. You certainly can use more, depending on the subject material and your personal comfort level, although it’s possible to dilute your message by focusing too much on entertainment and not enough on the actual material. But when you’re thinking about how to build or teach your training, a single funny story (or comic strip or game, depending on your preference) often can be the difference between a disengaged audience and an attentive one.
- Your audience does not want to be lectured to. This has been true since we were in elementary school. While all of us know there are things we need to learn and others who are more knowledgeable than we are, none of us likes to feel as though the person standing at the front of the room is “better” than we are, even when those people are demonstrably better than we are. In most cases, this ingrained distaste for being lectured to manifests less as active rebellion and more as passive disinterest; we sit, we pretend to listen because we assume we know more than we really do, our mind wanders, and we ultimately get little out of the training. The best, and possibly the only, way to overcome this natural resistance from your audience is through humor, anything from a self-deprecating joke to a quick story about your own days sitting in the chairs you’re now standing up in front of. Humor, even the smallest amount, will make your audience feel as though you are one of them, that you understand where they’re coming from, that you appreciate their lack of interest in being lectured to and are doing what you can to make the best out of the experience, and that you’re not going to treat them like inferiors for not knowing whatever it is you’re about to teach.
- Do NOT do anything you’re not comfortable with. All of us are different. Some of us are natural storytellers, and others aren’t. Some of us are naturally the funny one in our circle of friends, and others of us aren’t. Most importantly, what works for one trainer will not necessarily work for another. So find the strategies that work for you, stick with them, and don’t let anyone tell you that you have to be entertaining in a particular way. And if you’re training on a subject where you simply cannot figure out how any amount of humor could possibly be appropriate—terrorism or mortuary training, for example—then let the opportunities find you. Limit your humor to idle discussion with class members prior to the beginning of formal training or to your responses to impromptu questions. If you force yourself to try to be funny—and you’ll know when you’re forcing it—then it almost certainly will backfire on you.
I hope this has helped. I’m confident if you apply these principles to your own training efforts, you will both enjoy your job more and find your audiences more enthusiastic than ever. The exact strategies you’ll use are yours to discover, but the principles are the same for all of us. And they’re not that complicated.
Jeff Havens is a keynote speaker and corporate trainer who addresses leadership, generational issues, and other areas of professional development through a unique blend of content and entertainment. He has been a regular guest on Fox Business News and featured in CNBC, BusinessWeek, and Bloomberg News. To learn more about Havens’ keynote presentations and corporate training, visit http://www.JeffHavens.com.
