I'm not much of a joke teller but the other day I was in a meeting at work, a meeting of a serious nature with some serious people, and things were becoming a little heavy, that is to say bogged down, and I could tell people were getting frustrated which meant the meeting was not productive. I decided I'd interrupt the conversation to suggest we should reset our attitudes and that I felt a good way to do that, find a little moment of lightness, would be by way of a joke. I basically said this: "chaps, thanks for the spirited conversation, your opinions and possible solutions, all valid and all great, but I think we need to lighten the mood so I'm going to tell a joke"
They looked at me like I'd lost my fucken senses but I pushed on anyway and said my joke.
"Guys, what do you call a man with no body or nose?" I dropped it and waited.
The people in the room looked at me and I think some of them were thinking, who the fuck brought this guy, but they eventually shrugged and indicated I should complete the joke...so I did.
"Nobody knows!"
I let that sink in. (Get it though? Yeah yeah, it's a shit joke.)
I sat there looking at those in the room who were looking back at me probably thinking, you are such a fucken idiot, and then one of them said, "that was the worst fucken joke I've ever heard!" I didn't disagree. But here's the thing, everyone started laughing right then, picking on me and calling me all sorts of unpleasant names, and the mood in the room? Well, it lightened immediately.
I started giving out as good as I was getting and, predictably, some of the guys came out with equally bad jokes that earned them an equal amount of scorn and derision as I'd received myself. It turned into a bit of a free-for-all to be honest.
Eventually we got back to work and were all a little more energised which made things much better. It ended up being a really productive meeting with excellent paths forward found and we all walked away better for it....and in a happy mood due to the productivity and the overall good feeling of a fun meeting.
Sometimes lightening the mood in a tense moment can work well; there's certainly times I'd not do what I did but there's appropriate moments for sure.
Have you ever been in a similar situation? How have you lightened the mood when things were getting tense and brought things back on track? It could be professionally, with your friends or family and many other situations. What about bad jokes? You know any?
Drop a comment below if you like.
Design and create your ideal life, tomorrow isn't promised - galenkp
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