Power of laughing at ourselves: A TED talk by Tom Fishburne

Continuing from last week, today I will cover a TED talk by Tom Fishburne. If you have about 13 minutes, you can listen to this talk on Ted by clicking here. Else please read the following few lines to get the gist of it.

Tom is the founder of Marketoonist, a content marketing agency focused on the unique medium of cartoons. He is also the author of Your Ad Ignored Here: Cartoons from 15 Years of Marketing, Business, and Doodling in Meetings. Tom started drawing cartoons on the backs of business cases as a student at Harvard Business School. His “Marketoonist” series now reaches hundreds of thousands of readers each week, and his cartoons have been featured by the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company and the New York Times. I have subscribed to his website and really enjoy the newsletters.

He travels the world working with different organizations. He always sends a cartoon up ahead and seeks captions. There is about 25% response rate on average, but what really stands out is the types of responses. Sometimes, people send him elaborate cartoons on their own as they extend his initial vision or send him some saucy comments, but sometimes people hesitate to share their thoughts seeking anonymity.  He believes that people’s ability to be funny or being able to laugh at themselves does not really change, what changes is the culture. Some cultures allow us the ability to be funny, while others do not.

He says there are three benefits of the ability to be able to laugh at ourselves:

• It gives you a sense of belonging: When you can laugh freely and laugh together, you belong.
• It is disarming: It lets us talk about things that are otherwise hard to talk.
• It lets us be vulnerable: It takes away the fear or looking foolish, even the fear of failing and lets us try new things that we otherwise we will not.

Humor makes us more comfortable in “being uncomfortable”. I wish that all leaders can set examples with the ability to laugh at themselves, giving a permission to all in the team to be free with their thoughts. When they belong, and are ready to be vulnerable, when they find a way to disarm themselves, you will get a true team that will work wonders.

Stay tuned for more next week.