Alright, let’s play pretend.

Take a second to imagine a remarkably productive workplace. These people are really killing it. They are pushing to prod, circling back, and bringing those shareholders some 100% all-natural value. They are tracking their KPIs and exceeding all of their targets. Bonus season will be a victory lap.

Now, let me ask you a few questions about your vision.

How many memes did you see posted in this imaginary workplace?

None? Interesting.

Ok, how many angry groans did you hear from people reacting to their coworker’s atrocious puns?

Also zero? Huh…

What about silly quips in Slack? Not a single one?

That’s weird, right?

Humans make jokes about everything – it’s kind of our species’ thing. And it’s not like corporate life is some sort of magical exception. There is a ginormous, ever-evolving ecosystem of office- or corporate-related humor out there, filled with creators and meme accounts doing nothing but posting silly content about working in a corporate environment.

So why don’t we think about humor when we think about being productive?

In my professional experience, humor and silliness are often considered, at best, benign distractions from the Serious Work that we must do. Sure, they might help in the side quest of maintaining “morale”, but they aren’t viewed as essential ingredients to success. If you want to drive revenue, humor is not a lever you think to pull.

Personally, I think this attitude is wrongheaded. So I want to put forward three reasons why you should care about fostering kindhearted and respectful humor in the workplace.

Ok, let’s take being silly seriously for a second.

Humor is complicated. Imagine cracking a quick one-liner in a team meeting. For that joke to “work”, you need to have a read on your audience, the context of the meeting, and the overall context of the company. You can’t just make a random joke – it has to be relevant. You have to thoughtfully make use of your knowledge in a well-timed way relative to the context and rhythm of the meeting.

You also have to be prepared to fail. Even when you are an expert in your craft, sometimes jokes fall flat. And if you aren’t being careful, you could annoy your boss for causing a distraction or even possibly hurt someone.

Taken together – even a simple joke in a boring meeting requires the person to be creative and to take a risk.

Now, replace “cracking a quick one-liner” with “sharing a new insight”.

It’s the same skillset.

You need to be able to know your audience, read the room, understand the context of the meeting, and you need to be willing to take a small risk that your comment could be considered distracting from the meeting or otherwise uninteresting. From this angle, making silly comments can be seen as a way to practice sharing more serious insights. 

Furthermore, an environment that encourages joking around and silliness is the same type of environment that encourages teams to be earnestly engaged. If a team member is comfortable making a quick, silly comment, then they are also going to be much more likely to share an idea they just had on that recent sales data. Telling those jokes and learning that it’s safe to occasionally fail opens the door to business-critical input as well. 

Lighthearted humor can also be a vehicle for team members to comment on much more weighty issues. I won’t dig as deep on this topic because it’s partly covered above: an employee who feels safe enough to take creative risks in view of others also likely feels much more comfortable speaking honestly about issues in the workplace.

But it’s more than that – humor itself can be a means for communicating and/or acknowledging real concerns. Comedians and other artists throughout history have used humor as a way to engage with negative conditions, and the workplace is no exception.

For example, a manager joking about the company’s stock performance can be a way to acknowledge the real anxiety their team is facing. It’s a way of saying, “Hey, I see that thing you’re worried about” in a caring way. Ironically, joking about how bad things are can also be a way to encourage folks to find a way forward. 

Among other essential human pursuits, I firmly believe that we should aim to maximize the amount of joy that any given human is capable of having.

This argument might sound funny, but I am deadly serious. Whether or not someone has space for silliness and fun is not trite a concern – every human should have the right to pursue joy. A life without such happiness is truly miserable, and no one should be forced to endure that. 

We should value levity in the workplace because work takes up a third or more of our waking hours as living and breathing humans, and making those hours as enjoyable as possible brings self-evident benefits to society and all of our lives.

There is no secret productivity tip hidden in this section. I believe we have a moral imperative to make work suck less because, when we do, we make life better.

ROI be damned. 

I could wax poetic about the opportunities to authentically bring fun into the workplace (“authentically” being a load-bearing adverb here), but first and foremost,  you need to ensure that your organization prioritizes genuine respect and kindness. Folks need to feel safe being themselves, and honestly, that can sometimes be all you need for humor to flourish. Heck – it can even become a virtuous cycle with safety fostering humor which in turn fosters a greater sense of safety, which in turn fosters humor, and so on and so forth.

The key, though, is finding ways to introduce humor that fit your particular context. Critically, you don’t have to be a people leader to make a difference in this regard. As an IC, I have seen real team improvements by simply being willing to drop an occasional relevant meme in the group chat or making horrible puns in team meetings – and encouraging others who do the same. These sorts of grassroots changes can materially impact the functioning of a team. People leaders absolutely need to do their part to contribute to a positive vibe on the team, but ICs are not without power. It’s worth it to take even a small risk with being a bit silly because the potential payoff is a better workplace for all, and that is, in and off itself, a worthwhile goal.