Latest / Authentic Living / Humour, Culture and the ROR: Return On Relationships (Part II) with Michael Kerr

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Humour, Culture and the ROR: Return On Relationships (Part II) with Michael Kerr · Authentic Living

0:01
Welcome to authentic living with Roxanne, a place where we have as conversations about
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things that really matter in our lives.
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And now here's your host, Roxanne Derhodge.
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Hi.
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It's Roxanne Derhodge.
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I'm a mental health and wellness specialist in a corporate leadership executive coach.
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My new book, return on relationships, launching on June 10th, 2023, introduces the concept of
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return on relationship a new metric for business growth.
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Grab a copy.
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Let me walk you through how to be a better leader and provide you with exclusive tools to
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guide you in building your authentic leadership legacy.
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You can find the link in the show notes to pre order your copy today.
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Hope you enjoy.
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Our interview last week was so good that we decided to turn it into a 2 part series.
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If you missed last week, you'll find the link in the show notes.
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It's not mandatory that you listen, but we wanna make sure that you don't miss out on this
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amazing conversation.
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Hi, everyone.
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It's Roxanne Duraj.
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I welcome again to authentic living with Roxanne today.
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I have a, I would say, a very good friend.
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Michael Kerr.
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As you see, he's saying hello to anybody that can see the video.
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And, Michael and I are both, members of the Canadian association professional speakers
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where he's a hall of famer, which is a big big deal.
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He's been doing, this speaking for quite a while, and he travels internationally speaking
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about culture, and productivity in the workplace.
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Michael, thanks so much for coming on today.
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Well, thank you for having me, Roxanne.
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It's an honor to be here.
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It's it's so fun to be here.
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And and do you remember the last time we had a lot of fun?
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We did.
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When where were we?
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Where where were we?
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Where were we?
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Where were we, Roxanne?
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We were in beautiful Ireland.
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Yes.
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Absolutely.
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We had so much fun.
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We had so much fun.
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We laughed a lot.
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We we learned a lot.
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We talked a lot.
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And, you know, I know this is the space that, Michael pro provided many elements where we
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were giggling and learning at the same time in in in, Dublin.
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So today, we're gonna talk a little bit about what Michael talks about.
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And I think my naturally is very, very funny.
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Something that I have to work on when I I know I speak to others.
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I'm just thinking the average senior person that's here what I think of corporate culture
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and change, that takes a lot.
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So let's say you're a senior leader and you're listening to this and there's been a lot of
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issues in your environment.
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What are some of the things that they should start thinking?
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They might say, oh, this would be nice to implement.
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We've had a lot of things not go so well.
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If I'm things starting to think about overall corporate strategy about changing my culture
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and having people lighten up, What are some of the things that I should be thinking about?
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As a as a senior leader.
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And Yeah.
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And that's had some stuff happen that has maybe not been so nice.
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Sure.
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And and back to your earlier point, Roxanne too.
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Right?
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It's not rocket science.
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Right?
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We wanna work with people who have a good sense of humor.
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They're more likable.
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So as a senior leader, this is really important.
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So I think it starts with self awareness.
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Mhmm.
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And it it starts by just reflecting on your own attitude, how you're coming across.
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Are you not just approachable, but I like to use the language over approachable.
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Because we know just from nature of your position, just from nature of the power that
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you hold with your job title, you can be scary to a lot of your employees that if you wanna
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create psychological psychological safety in your workplace where employees can come to you
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with challenging questions and their concerns and their great ideas that you may be missing
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out on.
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You have to be Uber, over approachable.
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So being aware of just bringing a certain lightness and levity to how you interact with
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your employees, how you connect with them, being present, taking the time to connect with
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them is so important.
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And again, circling back to that idea of just laughing at yourself more.
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It is absolutely so, so important.
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So just being overly approachable with your sense of humor is it may sound very simplistic,
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but it really is a key to so, so much.
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And that means you've gotta as you said earlier, you've gotta be a little vulnerable
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sometimes to be able to laugh at yourself.
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It's not always gonna work.
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But the more you do that, the more you're going to create that that tone, that lightness.
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And so then I would suggest that people look for those those touch points that are so
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critical in an organizational culture to start to change the the culture to change the the
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feeling of of of the workplace.
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Like meetings.
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Meetings are incredibly important as a touchpoint in my books.
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Meetings help reflect or should reflect the culture that you want and they also help create
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or foster that the culture you want.
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So if you want a fun, creative, innovative, positive, humane workplace culture, then, boy,
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you better make sure your meetings are fun and innovative and humane and positive and all that
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stuff.
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So making sure you're bringing humor into your meetings, I think, is really, really important
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because that's that sends a message too that can infiltrate the entire culture, right, that
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can that can spread out to the entire culture like a wave.
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If you start lightening up at your meetings and and bring a little more fun into your meetings.
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And there's so many ways to do that.
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There are tons of ways to do that.
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Opening up your meeting with a fun icebreaker where you you pass an imaginary ball of energy
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around the way I get people to do sometimes in my audience or you have people stand up and
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everybody at the same time, so nobody feels put on the spot.
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Everybody spells their name using only the movement of their hips.
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Does something totally silly to get people laughing.
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Are you kidding?
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I am not kidding.
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It's a great it's a great exercise.
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Even a scientific America study, Roxanne, found that the most effective meetings are those
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meetings that have a lot of humor and joking around in them and battering them because
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people are more honest.
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People open up more, and they're more creative and more innovative.
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Putting in a little humor break in the middle of your meeting, having having just fun
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question where you go around the room, just something simple.
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You know, we used to have the rumor mail section in meetings that I managed many years
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ago.
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You had to everybody had to do it the same way.
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You had to look up and down the table, lean in, and then whisper.
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Word on the street is.
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And then share your rumor.
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And it made it kinda goofy and playful, which allowed people to share some uncomfortable
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things they had been hearing that otherwise, they might not have wanted to share.
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So we did we did all sorts of fun things in our meetings.
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And what what a nice thing, right, because The rumor mill is oftentimes something that can go
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toxic and can end up being really, really detrimental to a team or a culture But the fact
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that you can make fun of it, oh, yeah.
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I heard so and so is doing this, and you kinda get it out there, you know, in the open and
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where people can then laugh about it and go, oh my goodness.
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You heard this or that.
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I love that.
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And I've never heard about that.
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The hip one is the the the bass so far, though.
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I have to admit.
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I have to try to see where I could use that, but that's how funny could that be.
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Right?
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Right.
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And and and when you get people laughing in those serious situations, it it just makes a
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world of difference in terms of how the conversation unfolds.
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And you could do it in virtual meetings.
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You can do it in person meetings.
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It doesn't matter.
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But Again, back to my central point here.
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Meetings are an incredibly important touch point.
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Get your meetings right, and that can have at least a starting point on on your culture.
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And then and then beyond that, of course, it's everything is is communication.
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Right?
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It's all about communication communication communication.
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As a senior leader talking about this stuff, first of all, when you're presenting to your
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team, to your organization, lightening up, using a lot of humor, laughing at yourself
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helps a lot.
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It helps you again be more likable.
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So they're more app to listen to your message and buy your message.
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We know from the research, but also just using every communication opportunity point to send
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messages about your culture.
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I mean, really, we're talking about values here.
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Right?
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Right.
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Of course.
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Of course.
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Making sure that everyone understands what your cultural norms are, that your values actually
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mean something, right, that that you're you're not just getting your team together once a year
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and holding hands and singing, we are the world.
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Because your values make you feel so good.
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As I always say, right, who's going to disagree with your wonderful list of use.
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Every company has a wonderful list of values.
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In fact, some of your competitors probably have the exact same list as you do.
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So why are some organizations rocking it?
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Some teams rocking it, and some not, it's because those cliche sayings actions speak
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louder than words and talk is cheap.
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As a senior leader, you need to really, really clearly define what your values actually really
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mean in terms of everyone's behavior and attitude.
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Turn them into stories, turn them into examples, celebrate your employees that are
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superheroes when it comes to living your values out loud.
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Like, I would say, you know, you you know, when you talk about it, because, you know, in my new
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book, I talk.
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There's different, modules, but one of them obviously is awareness for leaders or
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relational transparency.
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Like, how transparent are you?
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You think you might be one way.
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But spending that time within within yourself, let's say you're not so funny.
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You may be a little bit more stoic, but you really wanna be a little bit lighter.
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You don't have to be silly all the time.
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You can actually be light and have people get to know you a little bit better, which will
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kind of maybe rev up the engine for you to maybe try something a little bit lighter as you
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go.
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So you don't have to go from 0 to a 100 because then people will probably think, okay.
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Something's gone horribly wrong here.
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Right.
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And you're not very authentic.
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Right.
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Right.
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It's like, oh, stoat guy to funny guy.
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One day, people are probably gonna run through
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the door.
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You turn into Michael Scott from the office, and everyone starts cringing.
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For sure.
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For sure.
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Now, Mike, you have you ever seen people try to apply the concept of humor and it it it kinda
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didn't work for them.
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Like, some don'ts of things where people have gone and said, oh, we're gonna this is his new
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strategy.
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We think we're just going to, you know, apply it to a workplace, not just humor, but just
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transparency or whatever.
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And overall, I think with you doing the corporate culture work that you do.
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Some things that you've seen people try that you think, oh, they should have not done it
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this way.
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Well, I just have to look at myself to see when humor bombs sometimes, right, because because
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it doesn't always work.
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Right?
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But that's about, again, going back to just being more human, being more real, more
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authentic.
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And and and I wanna circle back to that point you made to Roxanne about some people just not
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being very funny, and I do wanna stress that.
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It's not about being funny.
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Right?
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Having a sense of humor is about just being more more human, more real, about having a
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sense of balance and perspective.
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And, again, just laughing at those things you have no control over.
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So the worst thing you can do is try too hard to be funny.
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Right?
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It is about just being your authentic sell.
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And some of the most inspiring leaders, inspiring CEOs that I've interviewed all over
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the world are introvert And normally are they introverts?
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They're they're shy in some cases.
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And yet they've told me that they they understand their their self aware enough to
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know they cannot hide behind those natural personality tendencies.
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They understand the job of a leader is to connect with their employees is to build that
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that environment.
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They are the orchestra conductors when it comes to setting the tone for the workplace, and they
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have to get beyond those natural tendencies to sit in their office all day and and be kind of
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stoic and not connect with people.
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So it's it is really just about looking for those simple things that you can do.
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I I I don't have any examples really of organizations that have maybe maybe I mean, one
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offs.
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Yes.
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I think the biggest mistake organizations make is that they they will try a few things and
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then they fall to the wayside very quickly.
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So then it looks like It's the fad of the month.
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It looks like it's just, a band aid, it's window dressing, right, because they're not
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taking it seriously.
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So what matters is consistency over time, what matters is looking for those those moments,
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those touch points, where we can change the culture.
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I'm a huge fan of rituals and traditions at work.
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Mhmm.
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Almost every great organization I've interviewed is a huge believer in rituals and
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traditions because they help define the culture.
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They help shape the culture.
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They give it an identity, and rituals and traditions give employees something to look
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forward to and something to reminisce about.
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It creates that sense of shared history on your team in your organization.
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And so if you can ritualize or traditionalize.
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Is that a word, Roxanne?
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I don't know.
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We'll make it a word.
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Traditional.
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Well, we we just we just made one up.
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We can make them up.
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Sure.
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If if you turn some of those habits, those behaviors that you wanna turn into habits into
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rituals or traditions and stick to them, then your odds of succeeding are far, far greater.
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And so, again, if you wanna create a lighter workplace environment, Look for opportunities
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to create rituals and traditions.
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It could be something fun to kick off the workweek with on a Monday morning.
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Maybe as a lot of my clients do, it's team huddle on a Friday afternoon where it's very
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much a spirit of celebration where they welcome many new people that started this that week in
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a fun way where they celebrate the top 3 wins of the week.
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And and it's a way of just leaving on a high note.
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Maybe it's a ritual tradition to celebrate certain milestones that you achieve on your
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team or in your organization.
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There's so many milestones and rituals and and traditions that can help build a stronger
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culture.
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And some of them are fairly simple.
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You know, I I know of one client where they do.
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I love this because it's so simple.
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3rd person Thursdays where everybody who works there every Thursday refers to themselves in
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the 3rd person.
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In other words, by their own name.
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Right?
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So anybody can do that.
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Doesn't matter if you're a real introvert.
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It's pretty easy to do that.
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Right?
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Everybody just, you know, if I was working there, I'd say, hey.
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Yeah.
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Mike's looking forward to the meeting later on.
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Like, how stupid is that?
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But it just puts a smile at everyone's face and everyone looks forward to it.
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Another one of my clients
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How silly are you?
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Everybody's thinking everybody else is silly.
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Yeah.
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All the time.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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It's it's it's awesome.
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You know, simple little things like a name tag Friday where everyone wears one of those.
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Hello.
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My name is, but every week, you have to answer a different question that you put down on the
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name tag.
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It could be something as dirt simple as, you know, are you a dog or cat person?
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What's your favorite James Bond movie?
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What's your dream vacation destination?
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So it just becomes a fun way to connect with people in a different way.
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It just creates this little bit of lightness.
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So there's simple little things like that you can do.
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It it could even be just a matter of of a fun morning huddle where you meet every morning
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just as a touchpoint.
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I know this group of engineers where they they meet every morning.
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There's about 15 of them And once they're all in their open office, they all stand up and
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they all shout out how they're just feeling on a scale of 1 to 10.
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Dirt some.
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Takes like a minute.
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Because some some basic things.
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Right?
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Basic things.
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Basic things.
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Yeah.
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Because you're gonna get down to business at some point.
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Yeah.
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Or even things like, I guess, like, a nickname could be something or Oh,
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so so many things.
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Yeah.
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What's one thing you, you know, a a myth or a fact about you.
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There's so many ways that you can do it so that people like not and at the end of the day, you
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talked a little bit about psychological you know, with me, with the work that I do, it's
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really about giving people people permission to be themselves.
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And when people are able to to show you who they are, then even if they make a mistake,
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they feel okay coming forward, and then people risk that much more.
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Right?
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Absolutely.
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It it psychological safety is For me, probably the biggest piece of the puzzle when we talk
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about creating healthier workplace cultures.
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If you don't have psychological safety, there are so many issues that fall out of that.
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And when you do have psychological safety, it opens up just so many possibilities for
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everyone And, you know, when I when I've interviewed employees at really great
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workplaces, and one of the things I've always asked him is Is this the best place you've ever
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worked or what is it that makes you so happy in this workplace?
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The number one answer I get in fact, Roxanne.
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The number one answer is this is the first workplace where I finally feel like I can be
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myself.
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Right?
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I could just bring myself to work all day, and it's Right.
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Awesome.
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It's so stressful not being yourself all day.
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It takes a lot of mental energy.
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And wear and tear on your psyche.
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So just being able to be myself, it's just it's so fabulous.
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So impressive.
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You know, I think of the my one of my best bosses off often, like, ever, ever in all my
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cur all my jobs.
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And he I would enter his office and you would say, Durgaj, What do you want?
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And I'm like, like, anybody's looking in would go, oh my god.
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And he'd be like, not you again.
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What do you want now?
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And that was how he because he joked all the time.
18:04
Right.
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He goes, oh, no.
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You it better be something good.
18:07
You're here again.
18:08
And we would joke around and laugh because he would see me coming and down the hall, he's
18:14
he's he'd belt that out, you know, and then at first, people would be like, oh, they don't
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have a good relay.
18:19
It honest goodness was the best relationship because he knew I would be I would joke around.
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He would joke around.
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And I I mean, I was newer to career at that point in consulting, but what it does, it just
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lightened me up.
18:33
Right?
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I knew a lot about the field, but I was different to the sector.
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And then I, you know, we would joke.
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We would laugh.
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I would learn to your point as a good example.
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And still, he will go down in history as being the best boss I've ever had in my life.
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Yeah.
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Which is saying a lot.
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Right?
18:49
Yeah.
18:49
Yeah.
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Difference.
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Safety plus humor because you can't engage in humor if it there's not safe because if people
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feel unsafe, it's gonna be sarcasm or, unsteadiness.
19:01
Right?
19:01
And then that that, again, could go in the opposite way of people feeling like maybe
19:06
marginalized or that the boss is toxic.
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So they really has to be that element of trust your point to be able to get the permission to
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make a joke or be kind of light as well.
19:17
Right.
19:17
Right.
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And human researchers have identified 4 different styles of humor, 4 different types of
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humor which I talk about in my book, the humor advantage, and 2 of them are very positive
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humor.
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So for the most part, that's what we wanna obviously be celebrating in the workplace.
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2 of the styles are very negative, like sarcasm.
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However, I would point out just as you said, that all depends on the nature of the
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relationship and that level of trust.
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And if you worked with your boss or a colleague for 15 years and you have a high level of trust
19:46
and you know each other very well, chances are you're going to be sarcastic from time to time
19:51
with one another, and it's okay.
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But if you're sarcastic to The employee who just started this morning.
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Yeah.
19:58
Maybe you might wanna reconsider.
20:01
Not so much.
20:02
Now you mentioned your books.
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So tell us the names of your 3 books.
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You've got the humor advantage.
20:07
The other 2 are
20:09
Yes.
20:09
My well, these are my last my last three books.
20:12
The
20:13
out of out of how many that
20:15
have been?
20:16
I have 8 books total.
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My goodness.
20:18
Wow.
20:18
I did not know that, Michael.
20:20
Oh, good.
20:20
That is weird.
20:21
Well, it's not I have 8.
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Wow.
20:23
Some of them have nothing to do with the workplace, though.
20:24
I have a wildlife watching guide, Roxanne.
20:27
Oh, okay.
20:27
Yeah.
20:27
I think you told me about that.
20:29
Okay.
20:29
So the last 3
20:31
are Yeah.
20:31
The last three are well, the humor advantage why some businesses are laughing all the way to
20:36
the bank, which focuses on the role of humor and building a posse.
20:41
It's really about workplace culture, the book.
20:43
Right.
20:44
Right.
20:44
And then hire, inspire, and fuel their fire, how to recruit onboard and train new employees
20:50
to live your culture out loud.
20:51
It's very quick read, but it it's it's a little died on a really important topic that we
20:55
haven't touched on.
20:56
And that's if you wanna work with great people who have great senses of humor, who are a fit
21:02
for your culture, then get your hiring right.
21:06
Everything starts with hiring and onboarding and training.
21:09
I've got so many leaders who say, 80%, 90% of the battle is making sure you get your hiring
21:15
right.
21:16
So investing in your hiring matters and then the jerk free workplace.
21:20
How you can take the lead to create a happier, more inspiring workplace.
21:24
And that's all about about frontline leadership and the idea that not only do we wanna make
21:30
sure we're creating a jerk free workplace because that's not a lot of fun.
21:34
We wanna encourage everybody in our organizations to step up as a leader no matter
21:40
what their position is and to embrace role as a frontline leader, and it just makes sense to me
21:45
that if we encourage more leaders in our organization, we can't help, but be more
21:50
successful.
21:51
Now for anybody that has heard this interview today and would like, to get in contact with
21:58
you to understand what you do, with culture or, you know, Michael Kino speaks.
22:05
I think that's predominantly most of your business.
22:08
Tell them a little bit about where they could buy the books or also where they could connect
22:12
with you to, to do some work with you.
22:14
Yeah.
22:15
Thank you for that Roxanne.
22:16
So so my books are all available on Amazon.
22:19
If you wanted bulk orders a book for a discounted price, then you can reach out to me.
22:23
My website is triplew.
22:25
Mikecur.com.
22:28
Miceker.com.
22:30
All my contact is in there.
22:31
There's lots of videos and and blogs and articles, and I would invite you to sign up for
22:37
my weekly newsletter inspiring workplaces where I talk about all that stuff.
22:42
And if you wanna get in touch with me directly, you can reach me by email, mike@mikecur.com.
22:50
Awesome.
22:50
Well, Michael, this has been great, miss giggling with you.
22:54
And I know.
22:55
I do too.
22:56
Jennifer spear who is I equally as funny, YouTube.
23:00
I have a lot to learn from you too funny people.
23:03
As I as I spend more time with YouTube.
23:06
So for everyone, what what did I learn today?
23:08
I said, you know, I talk a lot about, psychological safety in the workplace.
23:14
And, you know, the more you're able to understand and spend the time introspectively
23:18
with yourself as a leader, you're able to understand what it takes for people to connect
23:22
to you.
23:23
Spend that time.
23:24
And in my new book, which is now in prelaunch, ROR return on relationships, you can preorder
23:31
that now, and it'll get into things like connection, relational transparency,
23:38
communication, all the elements that helps you be as more secure leader within yourself and
23:43
then impact others.
23:44
So, you can, preorder today at Roxanne.
23:49
Forward slash book, and it'll be sent out to you.
23:52
And it will be available to Amazon on June 10th.
23:56
So, Michael, again, thanks so much for your time.
23:58
And, Hope we'll see you, hopefully, before we'll go back.
24:02
But if not, we'll see you.
24:04
We we will giggle somewhere virtually.
24:06
For sure.
24:06
For sure.
24:07
I may be happy out.
24:08
I know you run that app.
24:09
Yes.
24:09
There you go.
24:10
For cats.
24:10
Congratulations on the book, Roxanne.
24:12
I can't wait to read it, and I can't wait to interview you.
24:17
Thanks for tuning in to authentic living with Roxanne, creating the space for positive,
24:22
healthy change.
24:23
Roxanne is a keynote speaker psychotherapist, and coach to work with Roxanne, visit
24:30
rocksandurhaj.com/blueprint.
24:34
We'll see you next time on authentic living with Roxanne.