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Humour, Culture and the ROR: Return On Relationships 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 10 2023, introduces the concept of
0:51
return on relationship a new metric for business growth.
0:54
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
1:00
guide you in building your authentic leadership legacy.
1:03
You can find the link in the show notes to preorder your copy today.
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Hope you enjoy.
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Hi, everyone.
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It's Roxanne Dora Hodge.
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Welcome again to authent 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 whole 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 in
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in Yes.
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Absolutely.
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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 and, you know, I know this is the space that Michael provided many elements
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where we 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, and I think Michael
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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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So Michael, gonna talk a little bit about kind of what caught you Speaking.
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Like, you know, I know you speak all over the world.
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What got you in involved or wanting to to go out and speak about culture?
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Yeah.
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Thank you, Roxanne.
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And by the way, I think you're very funny.
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Sometimes you don't maybe realize you're being funny, but I think you're really
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Is it because I have 5 foot nothing?
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Is that why
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I'm No.
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No.
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No.
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It's because you're adorable, and you're just
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you're just Thank you.
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Not very nice.
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Just being so I I got into speaking because I worked in a what can only be described as a
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soul sucking fund sucking workplace.
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You have to be very careful when you say fun sucking fast.
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I've learned over the years.
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Yes.
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If you don't enunciate properly, you know, you could get in trouble.
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Yeah.
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So I I worked in this really soul sucking dysfunctional workplace culture.
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It was killing me.
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And I was a manager in this organization, but the culture was just abysmal.
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And despite my best efforts to influence the culture to change it to maintain my natural
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sense of humor in the face of all that.
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I knew I had to do something else with my life or it would kill me And because I did a lot of
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speaking and training in that position, I knew that that was something I wanted to do.
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And because of the experience I went through, I decided to make that my life mission to talk
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about how work shouldn't be sucking the life out of you.
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Just the opposite.
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Work should be energizing us that work is so important to our lives.
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It affects our marriages and family lives and our physical and mental health and our identity
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and our personal growth.
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It affects where you live It's just a wee bit of a time sucker.
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So work goes far beyond than just collecting a paycheck in terms of its impact and I wanted to
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talk about how we owe it to our employees, we owe it to our customers, we owe it to the
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family members of our employees, We owe it to our souls to create as rocking, inspiring, and
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yes, as fun workplace culture as possible because this sucker matters a lot.
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So you know, I talk a lot about, being authentic.
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Right?
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And, you know, I think that naturally as human beings, we try to be as real as we can be.
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But sometimes in workplaces, sometimes people, I would say sometimes have personas.
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You have to be If you're the boss, you have to be the serious guy.
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If, you know, if if you're the leading the team, you have to make sure everybody, you
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know, respects you.
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And there's generally isn't I would think about myself when I worked in corporate, that people
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literally didn't have a lot of fun.
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Or they didn't demonstrate that capacity to be light.
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And, you know, and I often thought, well, if people can giggle and laugh a little bit, it it
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made so much more sense, but oftentimes, it was like people felt they couldn't be themselves.
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What made you want to start to talk a little bit more about humor in the workplace.
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I talked a lot about humor in the workplace, and that kind of became my focus when I talked
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about great cultures for a couple of reasons.
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First of all, I was always known for my sense of humor.
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As a manager in any job I was in.
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I think I brought a lot of fun and positive energy and humor to the workplace, but I was
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also frustrated in those situations where I saw people not being their authentic selves where
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they, as you've said, Roxanne, put on these these masks, right, and talk in this weird way
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that they don't sound like when you're at the bar with them after work.
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And and these these fake sort of personas that everyone wears.
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And and and even feeling that pressure to not be yourself, I found incredibly challenging and
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frustrating.
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So I wanted to talk about humor because it's I think a great gateway to talk about so many
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other workplace issues.
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We know that it's a powerful driver of workplace culture success.
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For so many reasons, it also reflects workplace culture success.
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So it really was an evolution then.
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You started to talk about culture and what would enable people to be more productive and
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present, I would say.
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And then all and then because you're Funny.
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Like you said, bring that with you.
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That started to be implemented into your work as you did your your keynotes and and
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trainings.
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Is that what happened?
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Yeah.
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Well, actually, it was the opposite of that.
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I started speaking specifically exclusively about humor in the workplace.
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Okay.
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Okay.
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And the importance of how fun, but then it ended up evolving to talk about workplace
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culture because I started realizing that, well, This this is a lot deeper than just having fun
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at work.
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Yes.
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That's important.
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But as much as humor can drive a better workplace culture, it also reflects a better
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workplace culture, a healthier, more positive, workplace culture where where there are
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positive relationships and there's trust and respect and all those good things we should be
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doing in any workplace.
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When you work in a workplace like that, it becomes that much easier to be more authentic,
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to be more real, to bring your natural sense of humor along for the ride.
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So when I started looking at it that way, I realized it's it's just as important to talk
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about the things that organizations need to do to rocket with their workplace culture so that
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humor becomes the natural byproduct.
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So let's talk about some different sectors.
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We talk about manufacturing.
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We talk about hospitality.
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You know, we could talk about banking.
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And some of these sectors don't have they're not don't have much of a sense of humor.
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Right?
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And people are gonna listen to this and go, oh, yeah, Mister Kerr.
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How how am I gonna go to the line and talk about being humorous?
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And that's gonna make me feel better.
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Right?
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So what would you say to someone saying that?
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Look, you know what?
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My sector or my industry doesn't afford that.
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Like, for CEO listening, that's saying, well, that's that's a good point.
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That might be nice, but it doesn't work with my my sector.
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What would you How would you reach out to someone?
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It's a great question.
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And in fact, I just wrote a long blog on that very topic on my website about how do you add
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humor into a more traditional conservative organization or culture or industry where
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people perceive, well, you know, we can't have fun.
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We're different than everyone else.
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Right?
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Yep.
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I get it.
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You know, a lot of people, they're not you're not working in an amusement park.
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Mhmm.
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So sometimes it can feel like it's more challenging, but I have examples all over the
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world from every industry where people add humor.
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It doesn't matter what you do for a living, and a lot of that is just I think it's assumptions
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and it's perception that, well, we can't have any fun.
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And really what I'm talking about, ultimately, is having greater success.
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So if you wanna have greater success, then this is one of the tools.
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It's not the only one, but it's one of the tools that can help you achieve greater
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success.
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So I think a starting point is to to really look at the benefits of this and sell the
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benefits of it.
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Don't talk about, hey.
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We've have to make work more fun because some people might have a adverse reaction to that.
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But if you start talking about, hey.
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We need to do some things to reduce our employee turnover rate.
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Absenteeism rate and employee presenteeism rate.
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And we need to manage our stress and be more resilient and build a more resilient workplace
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culture and be more innovative creative and communicate more effectively and work better as
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teams and build stronger relationships, all those positive benefits that we know a little
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bit of humor and fun and play.
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Can help us achieve.
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So focus on the end results and know that there is a mountain of research that shows that humor
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helps with all of those goals.
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So if you wanna provide more remarkable customer service that is memorable and you
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wanna build a thriving positive workplace culture, then I think you have to realize that
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this is no joke.
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And it's not about taking our work lightly.
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Of course.
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It's not about taking our customers lightly.
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It's about taking ourselves lightly in order to take our work, in fact, more seriously and be
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even more professional fact, one of the things I say Roxanne that I think we can all relate to
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is when people take them it's it's about taking ourselves lightly.
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Right?
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When people take themselves serious, especially those senior managers, those CEOs and top
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leaders, the reality becomes no one takes you serious anymore because you're taking yourself
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so darn serious.
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So it's about learning to laugh at the things you have no control over.
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And laughing at ourselves more in order to build connections, build trust in the
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workplace, build stronger relationships, to be more approachable.
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So I would say that that plays into vulnerability, right, because if I can laugh at
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myself, then people go, well, you know, he or she's vulnerable.
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They they they see their flaws and, I mean, obviously, we're all flawed as human beings.
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But as a as a leader, I think, you know, you make some faux pas or you say something stupid
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or you do something stupid, and you're and you make fun about that, then people feel you're
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more relatable.
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And if I you're more relatable, they're gonna go, oh my god.
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Michael Kurz, just like me, versus if you're stiff stiff upper lip, you know, there's limbs
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swelling around, you know, so much going on around you where you're not able to just step
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back then that that lack of ability to feel like it's just like me.
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I think that gap kind of widens, but if you're kinda able to totally humanizes us.
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Right?
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She's still here.
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He's silly.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Totally humanizes us.
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When when leaders are the 1st to do something goofy at a Tin Building event, to poke fun at
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themselves, to admit their their their bloopers, then it totally humanizes them.
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And and there's this relationship between human trust that we know from research as well,
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right, that people who share a positive, healthy sense of humor tend to be trusted more.
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And I think that ties in as well to authenticity.
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The reason that relationship exists is because when you laugh at yourself, when you bring your
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sense of humor along for the ride, you come across as more real.
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Those personas you talked about earlier, those masks that we wear, they fall to the wayside,
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and you're just this this lovable approachable human being that we can all relate to because
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you're not taking things so darn seriously.
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I think it would collapse silos as well, right, if you I think organization.
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When I think that, well, when I worked in corporate, the leaders that have more that
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sense of, being available, like if it's for human or just vulnerability, those those seem
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to be the business units that we worked better with versus the ones that were, you know, so
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stoic or, you know, insular the ones that were kind of, you know, the leaders that were more
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available and silly, it those are the ones that it seemed to be easier to work kind of collide
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in and out with those business units versus the ones that said we're accounting.
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That's all we do.
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We don't do anything else.
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And, you know, I know myself as an account executive.
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I found it more difficult dealing with those individuals.
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You know, I'm not a numbers person.
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I will never be a numbers person.
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I'm not microscopic.
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So oftentimes, I'd be laughing at myself.
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Right?
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Right.
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Because I'm thinking, oh, no.
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I just missed that, you know, 2.5 CPI on this half a $1,000,000 account.
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Oh, jeez.
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And they're not thinking it's funny.
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They're thinking this is gonna cost a lot of money.
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And they're catching money, Roxanne.
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Not so funny.
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Exactly.
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But, so you talked a little bit.
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I'm just thinking the average senior person that's here when 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 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 in you wanna create
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that psychological psychological safety in your workplace where employees can come to you with
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challenging questions and their concerns and their great ideas that you may be missing out
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on, 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 them
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is so important.
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And, again, circling back to that idea of just laughing at yourself more, it is absolutely so,
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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've said earlier, you've gotta be a little vulnerable
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sometimes to be able to laugh at your 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 change the the culture to change the the
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feeling of of of the workplace, like meetings.
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Meetings are incredibly important as a point in my books.
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Meetings help reflect or should reflect the culture that you want, and they also help
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create a 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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good 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 if you start lightening up at your
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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 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 a 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 where 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, 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, but, otherwise, they might not have wanted to share.
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So we did we did all sorts of fun things in
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what what a nice thing.
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Right?
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Because the rumor mill is oftentimes something that can go toxic and can end up being really,
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really detrimental to, a team or a culture, but the fact that you can make fun of it, oh, yeah.
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I heard so and so is doing this.
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And you kinda get it out there in, you know, in the open and where people can then laugh about
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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 it.
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The hip one is the the the best 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 when you get people laughing in those serious situations, it it just makes a world of
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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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So 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 It helps you again be more likable.
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So they're more apt 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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And 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, because your values make you feel so
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good.
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As I always say, right, who's going to disagree with your wonderful list of values?
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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 of those cliche sayings actions speak
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louder than words and talk as cheap.
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So as a senior leader, you need to really, really clearly define what your values actually
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really 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.
21:04
This was such a great interview that we decided to turn it into a 2 part series.
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Be sure to tune in next week for part 2.
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So you don't miss out on the amazing content.
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Thank you for tuning in again.
21:16
Before I sign off, I wanted you to consider What is it disrupting your bottom line?
21:22
Just a reminder that my book return on relationships will be available on June 10th on
21:27
Amazon And it's available today on my website at roxanneurohodge.comforward/book.
21:32
For more tools, insights, and anecdotes about your leadership story, Consider pre ordering,
21:37
you'll find the link in the show notes.
21:40
Thanks for tuning in to authentic living with Roxanne, creating the space for positive,
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healthy change.
21:47
Roxanne is a keynote speaker, psychotherapist, and coach to work with Roxanne, visit roxanne
21:54
Durhaj.com/blueprint.
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We'll see you next time on authentic living with Roxanne.