The executive who booked us to come in person to AMAZON this week may be psychic. Or maybe they knew that CEO Andy Jassy was going to make his RTO announcement. Love that they wanted to make sure people feel good by having them laugh together. Here’s an excerpt from Jassy’s statement:
"...we’ve decided that we’re going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of COVID. When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant…collaborating, brainstorming, and inventing are simpler and more effective; teaching and learning from one another are more seamless; and, teams tend to be better connected to one another."
Here’s a link to the whole message if you’re interested. I certainly am! Particularly the last sentence that makes it clear that the e-commerce behemoth wants to make team connection a priority. Yes...and! In fact, we have been traveling the country, and the world virtually, helping lots of leaders who feel exactly the same way. People, all people, feel better, work harder, and are healthier when they feel connected to fellow humans.
My big epiphany after being a student, teacher and writer of comedy for 25 years is that getting people to laugh together is the express train to creating that feeling. And the best part is almost anyone can do this.
With a few comedy tools at your disposal, you do not have to be a professional to bring some levity to the table, so to speak. Not to minimize the artform which can take decades to master, there are a few tricks of the trade that will more than likely joyfully humanize a situation. And you don’t have to jump on the table like our friend in Seattle in the picture!
Here are our suggestions:
- Say something personal, authentic and unexpected! If you’re at work avoid sexual content, politics or religion. Benign, affiliative humor works best. Food preoccupations, laundry issues, and those old stand-by’s travel and pets. TIP: If you want laughs, the pet can’t be in harm's way.
- Make yourself laugh. Laughter is contagious. If you start laughing, in fact even if you start fake laughing, other people will laugh too. At first, they might be laughing at you faking laughing. The wonderful thing about laughter is that it has the same positive effect on your body and your spirit even if you are faking it. Yes there’s a joke here I’m not writing.
- Compliment someone about a small detail, an observation that you have to be paying attention to in order to notice. This probably won’t trigger guffaws of laughter, but it will likely get you a smile. And hopefully they will try to top you with something nice about you. With any luck you’ll get competitive about it, pointing out smaller and smaller details of fabulousness about each other. Exaggeration is definitely a tried and true comedy tool and putting it to use specifically in finding positive minutia about a co-worker or family member is one of the best uses of it!
Okay e-commerce overlord, I agree that bringing people back to the office is a good step in the right direction for helping people feel a sense of belonging. However, it is not the end of that story. As we’ve all experienced at least once, you can be surrounded by other breathing, talking mammals and still feel alone. The next step for Jassy and his leaders is to create a culture where once in the office, everyone feels seen, heard and mostly happy to be there.
Which, not to brag, is what the LOC team is really good at, just like we did this week! And no, this is not a direct solicitation to the good people at Amazon, that’s what LinkedIn is for. This is for all of us to remember. Being in-person is something I will never take for granted again, but we can’t rest on proximity laurels. We have to be intentional about staying curious about each other and when together, making enjoying each other the next crucial goal.
