Episode 9 Why Humor is So Valued in Some (e.g. American) Culture
I am a Chinese. I was not a typical humorous person. (No racism. Don't get me wrong.)
When I went on a Chile trip 3 month ago, with a group of fresh American MBA students, I was shocked how funny they are, and how easy they burst into laughters. I still remember there was one time when we 16 people were having dinner together, Adam sit beside me. He was about to say sth, but stopped. I asked, "What's that." He said, "Nothing. It was not funny, not worth saying." I didn't realize humor is so valued in American culture. That moment was so memorable to me that I kicked off a secret project of "learn to tell American jokes".
This learning process was quite classic:
1) I interviewed "experts" (my American friends who are good at telling jokes, and nice enough to explain to me how they do it)
2) I summarized the theories and examples, and did reflection
3) I tried out in real life. That was about 1.5 months ago, I told a joke by asking a question, and in one sec, the whole classroom of 60 people burst into laughters. And some people even PM me afterwards, saying they like it. That was an achievement! (Hay!)
After I somehow got this skill. I started to question why humor is so valued in American culture.
Last week, I attended a corporate conversation of company XYZ. After company intro, the principal Terry from XYZ started to share his suggestion to us, first year, first quarter MBA students. He said, take some management classes. It will be very important in your future career. I raised my hand, asked, "Are these soft skills learnable in classroom?" "Well, I see what you mean. Not all skills are learned on job. You can get sth here. For example, when I was in business school, one management class has 'practice and feedback' sessions, where I learned how to tell my boss a bad news, how to tell my subordinates there is pain in boss's ass, etc."
That was hilarious.
I suddenly got it.
Humor is valued, because
1) Humor facilitates learning and memorizing. Humorous people makes others happy. Happy people feel easier to learn, and theories with funny content/examples are easy to memorize and got buy-in.
2) Humor shows one's ability to ease tension and deepen conversation. It shows you are open and happy to debate sth, so more "genuine" thoughts will be spoken out. More wisdom and insights will be shared
3) Humor is persuasion and influence. Only when other's disagreement was spoken out, and only when you have the opportunity to persuade, you are truly heard.
Open for inputs from readers. Thank you for reading :)
When I went on a Chile trip 3 month ago, with a group of fresh American MBA students, I was shocked how funny they are, and how easy they burst into laughters. I still remember there was one time when we 16 people were having dinner together, Adam sit beside me. He was about to say sth, but stopped. I asked, "What's that." He said, "Nothing. It was not funny, not worth saying." I didn't realize humor is so valued in American culture. That moment was so memorable to me that I kicked off a secret project of "learn to tell American jokes".
This learning process was quite classic:
1) I interviewed "experts" (my American friends who are good at telling jokes, and nice enough to explain to me how they do it)
2) I summarized the theories and examples, and did reflection
3) I tried out in real life. That was about 1.5 months ago, I told a joke by asking a question, and in one sec, the whole classroom of 60 people burst into laughters. And some people even PM me afterwards, saying they like it. That was an achievement! (Hay!)
After I somehow got this skill. I started to question why humor is so valued in American culture.
Last week, I attended a corporate conversation of company XYZ. After company intro, the principal Terry from XYZ started to share his suggestion to us, first year, first quarter MBA students. He said, take some management classes. It will be very important in your future career. I raised my hand, asked, "Are these soft skills learnable in classroom?" "Well, I see what you mean. Not all skills are learned on job. You can get sth here. For example, when I was in business school, one management class has 'practice and feedback' sessions, where I learned how to tell my boss a bad news, how to tell my subordinates there is pain in boss's ass, etc."
That was hilarious.
I suddenly got it.
Humor is valued, because
1) Humor facilitates learning and memorizing. Humorous people makes others happy. Happy people feel easier to learn, and theories with funny content/examples are easy to memorize and got buy-in.
2) Humor shows one's ability to ease tension and deepen conversation. It shows you are open and happy to debate sth, so more "genuine" thoughts will be spoken out. More wisdom and insights will be shared
3) Humor is persuasion and influence. Only when other's disagreement was spoken out, and only when you have the opportunity to persuade, you are truly heard.
Open for inputs from readers. Thank you for reading :)
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