Date: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 10:21:04 -0500 From: Nachum Hurvitz Title: Humor best motivator in workplace Date: 01/21/94 (AP) - Work getting you down? Feeling stressed-out? Put on a clown nose, learn to juggle, take a walk, say experts in workplace humor. And never, ever forget that this ain't brain surgery, says Phil Sorentino, who runs Columbus, Ohio-based humor consultants inc., and an advocate of on-the-job jocularity. Too many people have jobs "where they have to leave themselves at home," he says. It's as if business today looks at an acorn and thinks, "Man, this would make a great redwood," he said. "So we send the acorn to redwood motivational school. We make it listen to redwood tapes. We send it to the greatest redwood university in America." "Now when this acorn grows up, will it be a redwood? No. It will still be an oak. But it'll be a very confused oak." Humor can be a defense against the intrusive nature of the modern office, a world in which fax machines and cellular telephones make it possible for work to find a worker just about anywhere, says humorist Dick deBartolo. "The fun part for me is all the little gadgets that make life a little easier," said deBartolo, who works for Mad magazine. For example, he now uses a product called Screenies - whimsical frames that fit around a computer monitor. One Screenie resembles the red plastic frame around the familiar Etch-a-Sketch toy; another is a cork board for frazzled employees to post reminders. Humor can also free employees and managers to be creative, consultants say. "Humor is tied to creativity, and the No.1 threat to American industry today is running out of ideas," says Susan Yerkes, president of Cleveland-based Catalyst Consulting. "Humor is tied to releasing, and being expansive in everything you do. The only reason an American industry has ever gone down the tubes is we stopped thinking," Yerkes said. Changes advocated by Yerkes, Sorentino and other consultants go beyond the occasional water cooler knee-slapper or lunchtime laff riot. It's part of a transformation in corporate culture, from office design to work rules, aimed at making going to work appealing again. Spicing work with humor - taking time to juggle, donning a propeller beanie or pausing a moment with some Silly Putty - can facilitate that process. "If you can make a person laugh, you can noticeably reduce their stress," Yerkes said. "People don't make good decisions when they're stressed out, so we need to get them in a state of mind where they can make some decisions. It's a paradoxically sober approach. "Humor is not our primary product - we have very serious products - but we have found that it facilitates our being able to manage change effectively," said Yerkes. The Catalyst Consulting offices reflect Yerkes' belief that everything about a job ought to reflect an enlightened company culture: * Other than the front door, there are no doors in the firm's office - nothing to keep anyone out. * The tables are round - no one sits at the head and dominates a meeting. * Bright colors and unusual geometric designs are everywhere. Desks are irregularly shaped, following the flowing contours of interior walls. * The office is decorated with sculptures are based on delta, the Greek letter shaped like a triangle that is scientific shorthand for "change." Even relatively simple things are laced with meaning. One of Yerkes favorite tools is jugging. "People think juggling...is keeping all three balls in the air. But when you watch someone juggle, only one ball is in the air at any time - the other two are firmly in your hand," she says. "I believe that's really a metaphor for learning. "All of our employees know how to juggle. We use it as a metaphor and often, on our retreats, we teach our clients how to juggle," she said. Sorentino encourages clients to "be more feminine" - to comfort instead of confront, make peace instead of war, be receptive instead of rule-bound. "I just did a speech to 350 Teamsters. You should have seen them when I was telling them about unconditional love and being more feminine in their leadership style," he says, laughing. "They looked like deer caught in headlights."