Russian Prosecutors Probe Parasailing Donkey

I stared at the headline in disbelief.  This world offers up many strange things, I know.  You can’t be a nurse for any length of time before you run headfirst into the impossible, the insane, or at least the definitively ill advised.  But here we are, looking at the New York Times, a reasonably well respected journalistic outlet, reading that Russian Prosecutors Probe Parasailing Donkey.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/07/20/world/AP-EU-Russia-Parasailing-Donkey.html?hp

Somewhere, a Times editor is laughing his head off.  Not at the story, which is little more than a questionable marketing stunt that left a donkey dangling above the Azov sea, braying its displeasure as the waves crashed beneath its hooves for half an hour.

It’s the headline itself that’s funny – read it aloud to anyone at random, a colleague, a friend, a stranger on the street – and you’ll get at least a chuckle.  The words are so absurd – the juxtaposition of donkeys and parasailing so unexpected – that the only thing you can do is laugh.

Sometimes, you can’t make this stuff up!
That’s the beauty of humor.  You don’t have to BE funny to SEE funny.  A major part of the effort to integrate humor into your life on a more regular basis – whether you’re doing this as a way to manage stress, increase your physical and emotional health or just have more fun – is learning how to view the world through a selective lens, keeping our eyes open to the things that are (perhaps unintentionally) funny that pop up in everyday life.

There were countless headlines in the Times this week.  What went wrong in the Gulf? What is Goldman Sachs doing to the market now? Are academics seeing the end of the tenure tradition?  All important, worthy questions, worth considering.

But it’s just as important, just as essential for our souls, our well being, our ability to cope with a world of oil spills and investment bankers, that we consider other things as well.  Things that make us laugh.  Things that make our heart delight.  Things that are just too silly to be taken seriously.

When we see Russians Probing Parasailing Donkeys, that’s a gift from the universe – delivered, perhaps, via an editor’s twisted perspective.  Smile.  Laugh.  Give thanks you’re not a donkey.  Recognize the benefits that are part of your existence and go forth with a merry heart to share the joy. Ponder the existence of aviation goggles for donkeys, to be worn with a leather cap and a white scarf knotted around the neck and mane. You don’t have to be funny. You only have to see funny!

The Legacy of Laughter: Creating Bonds that Last

In the New York Times today, Ellen Lupton has a column on how to lose a legacy.  Lupton examines our relationship with physical things: how keeping a set of dishes within a family for generations provokes feelings on continuity and connectedness – or, loosely paraphrased, how her non-hunting husband wound up with a doe’s head hanging proudly in their suburban living room.

These items can be wonderful, meaningful additions to our lives, Lupton asserts—but they can also be a burden. Storing, moving, and caring for the souvenirs of days gone by can be a challenge – as anyone who has ever tried to decorate for the holidays and move cross country in the same year can tell you!

Even if you want to retain every memento, from your children’s macaroni masterpiece through the dessert menu from the last time you went to Olive Garden, there’s always a risk of loss.  Natural disasters, housekeeping concerns, and plain old entropy are conspiring against you – not to mention lack of storage space!

Laughter is a Legacy that Endures

The same can’t be said for every legacy.  If we shift the conversation from the tangible to the experiential, we begin to see the real value in the connections we have with others.  Our relationships can be examined in the light of time spent together, milestones, moments and memories taking the place of treasured coffee mugs or Mother’s favorite garden hat. When we look at how those connections are forged, given light and strength and meaning, often what we find is laughter.

There’s a reason for that. Often, we consider laughter as a very individual event – something that gives us joy, something that makes us happy.  Yet leading biological researchers have come forward with the theory that laughter plays a pivotal role in ensuring humanity’s survival.  Laughter triggers positive feelings in other people, dissipating tension and strengthens bonds. When people are in high stress situations – primitive humans trying to survive in a hostile world or a team of colleagues trying to complete a project on time and budget – this dissolution of tension can ensure that groups stay on task, objectives are met, and goals realized.  At a minimum, frustration and hostility can be alleviated – you’re less likely to harbor ill will toward the person who can make you laugh.

Building A Legacy of Laughter

If we want a way to connect ourselves with others, whether they’re members of the previous generation or the next one, it’s essential to shift the focus away from physical, tangible objects and onto experiences.  Spending time with others, in person or via virtual connection, is the foundation of memory. Those positive emotional experiences we have – laughing together, sharing a silly moment, even those embarrassing moments that need a few month’s worth of perspective to provoke a chuckle – serve as a common ground where we’re connected to each other.  These moments have an additional value: they can be shared with a third party, recreating and expanding the joy to include even more people, strengthening and reinforcing bonds.  That’s the legacy of laughter: the stories that connect us and give us a collective identity.

A Crude Awakening: What The BP Oil Spill Teaches Us About Humor

There’s absolutely nothing funny about the BP oil spill.  No one would argue that – yet people are still laughing. (For example, see BP Spills Coffee)  If there’s one lesson we can take away from this entire tragedy, it’s that humor can fill numerous roles, some of which aren’t immediately obvious.

Humor Provides a Framework for Processing Tragedy

“The oil spill is getting bad,” David Letterman said, “There is so much oil and tar now in the Gulf of Mexico, Cubans can now walk to Miami.”  Confronted with an environmental disaster of unimaginable scope, we reach for ways to make sense of it all.  Letterman’s joke captured the scale of the spill in an unexpected way – weaving in some social commentary guaranteed to get a laugh from his audience -  deftly informing and assuring his audience that the situation was indeed that bad.

In a similar vein, we see the quips about BP’s new bio-degradable oil collection system – aka known as pelicans. These jokes are undoubtedly in bad taste, yet they also allow people a way to give voice to one of their largest fears. Simply speaking about what we’re afraid of relieves stress, tension, and anxiety.

Humor as a Tool of Social Commentary

BP is a huge corporation, with tremendous financial resources and a legal team the likes of which few, if any, of us have.  This disparity makes it difficult to have a meaningful dialogue. Why would this huge organization listen to a lone individual? If you’re not already powerful in your own right – an elected official, for example, or a media figure – it can be very difficult to get the attention of BP, much less their response.

Unless, of course, you use humor. A deadly combination of razor sharp sarcasm and social media prowess, the BPGlobalPR Twitter feed is Leroy Stick’s parody of official BP communications.

If we’re being accused of being criminals, we want to be tried by a jury of our peers – wealthy execs who don’t give a damn #fairisfair

We are not killing animals in the gulf, we are creating fossils in the gulf. Have a little perspective #bpcares

The feed gained so much attention – in no small part because they are the perfect encapsulation of the public’s frustration and rage – that BP not only noticed, they took action to have the messages stopped.  Pressure from BP resulted in Twitter forcing Stick to disclose that it was not the official BP site, creating more controversy and broadening the conversation about the initial oil spill and BP’s response. Humor has been critical in engaging the community, and creating a platform for social discourse accessible to all.

Lessons Still To Learn

BP hasn’t  yet figured out how to stop the oil, and the lessons we have to learn about how mankind will respond to the crisis are still flowing fast and furious.  It’s a dynamic environment, and we see the use of humor changing as the situation develops. As a no-cost, ever adaptive, portable, always available resource, humor may be the most critical resource we have at our disposal.

On Tour at Cancer Treatment Centers of America

I absolutely love being self-employed. I’ve been my own boss for almost twenty years now. But if I were ever going to punch a clock for someone else ever again, I think I found where I would want to work: Cancer Treatment Centers of America. I had the opportunity to visit their facility outside of Chicago last week—they knocked my socks off!

When you arrive at CTCA you are greeted by a couple of valet attendants, who for no fee (won’t even accept a tip) park your car for you and escort you inside. When you enter, immediately you begin to feel the warm energy emanating from this place. On the wall to your left, a brass tree with leaves baring the names of patients who have celebrated at least 5 years of life since arriving. You then pass a large aquarium with beautiful fish on your left and a beautiful atrium with plants and soothing music to your right. A friendly person at the reception desk greets you and quickly determines how to best suit your needs.

The hospital looks more like a hotel (The Ritz, not the Super8), with heavy wooden doors and molding on all the wings, attractive carpeting beneath your feet and beautiful artwork and heartwarming pictures in all the hallways. Rarely will you hear an overhead page (“It disturbs the sleep of our patients,” I was told.)

CTCA boasts the finest state of the art equipment, but what really makes them special isn’t the high tech—it’s the high touch. The founder, Richard Stevenson, created CTCA based upon what he calls the Mother Standard® of care. In the 1980s his beloved mother developed bladder cancer and he searched across the country for someplace that would give her the care he felt she deserved. Finding none, he determined that he would create a place, himself. Each person would be treated with the same unconditional support, warmth and respect that one would want for their own loved one, because everyone is someone’s mother, father, sister, brother, daughter or son.

Katherine Puckett, PhD and Director of Mind Body Medicine at CTCA is one of the most down-to-earth folks I’ve ever met. She told me of a time when she was seeing a patient in her office. Katherine apologized for the piles of reports and files that lay on her desk. The patient smiled and said that he found her office comforting, then explained, “It’s evident that you place people before paperwork.” That’s the mindset in this place—how comforting!

CTCA offers a comprehensive and integrative approach to fighting cancer. Traditional tools for fighting cancer such as surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and immunotherapy are combined with complementary therapies including nutritional support, physical therapy, pain management, naturopathic medicine, spiritual support and mind-body medicine. This enables patients to better tolerate the treatments which can kill the cancer, but can also be devastating to their physical and mental health.

One of the approaches used in the Mind-Body Department is humor and laughter. Dr. Puckett and several other staff members took training several years ago to become Certified Laughter Leaders (CLLs). Since then, numerous other staff have been trained and now laughter therapy, or Laughter Clubs are offered regularly for patients and their families. Participants come away feeling healthier, happier and more energized.

Kudos to the folks at CTCA. They get it. The patient is the focus of all that is said and done. Like I said, I’m not really looking for a job, but if I were, I hope I could make the cut. It would be a real privilege to work among such great people.

Traveling Barbie Creates Fun Corporate Culture

Times are tough economically, markets are down and customers are cranky—even angry! Taking care of the employees that have to deal with these customers, and taking steps to make the environment less stressful, makes for a healthier, happier, and more productive workforce. And taking care of employees is exactly what the folks at First Allied set out to do.

In preparation for my presentation on humor and stress management (I’ve Got One Nerve Left—and You’re Standing on It!), I first met with Blake Bjordahl, Sr. VP and Director of Operations and got a personal tour of the operations in San Diego. I was delighted to see evidence of many employees who took their jobs seriously and themselves lightly. Cubicles were decorated with pictures, cartoons, and even Legos, In one area, nicknamed “The Playground,” a bookcase contained numerous games, books and toys designed to help the staff de-stress. The vending machines were even subsidized so no one had to pay big bucks for their snacks!

Blake, and others at First Allied, grasp the importance of developing a corporate culture where employees play well together. A conscious effort is made to schedule activities where staff and their families can socialize, whether it’s a bar-b-que, a picnic, a softball game or some other fun activity. One of the great benefits of humor is the positive effect it has on bonding. People that play and socialize together develop much stronger senses of rapport. And stress levels definitely go down while people are having fun.

During my presentation, I gave the attendees strategic ways they can deal with stress by proactively using humor and laughter. After the presentation, it was my turn to get a lesson (I love that!).

A manager attending my session, Paula, introduced herself to me and to her Barbie Doll (see photo). This was no ordinary Barbie, as you’ll see by Paula’s explanation below!

“Years ago, I was going to Hawaii so someone gave me a Hawaii Ken doll for a Christmas gift.  Ken came along and had his picture taken everywhere we went and ended up with his own travel photo album.  In my current job, I travel a little bit and after my first trip I remembered Ken and his photo album and thought he might enjoy going on more trips.  I looked everywhere and couldn’t find him but I did discover that I had a Barbie doll (another gag gift from a co-worker) so she had to do.  My department is Business Strategies Group (BSG), so she quickly became BSG Barbie and accompanies me on all my trips.  She does whatever I do and I have an album of her working the conferences, attending some of the fun events, and enjoying my few moments of off-time by having her picture taken doing some relaxing things as well.  She has been to Atlanta, New York, Arizona, Nassau in the Bahamas, as well as working the conferences locally, and she’ll be going to Austin this month.

Of course, she worked/attended our national conference here in July and on the closing party aboard the USS Midway, she was kidnapped.  The kidnappers “borrowed” my camera for a short time that night and when I downloaded the pictures, I was shocked to see some pictures of Barbie I hadn’t taken myself.  I received a ransom note, got a “proof of life” picture, as well as a picture with a bag over her head so she couldn’t see her captors, a picture laying across a train track, and a picture depicting some heinous torture to her feet.  Ultimately, I had to pay a batch of homemade cookies to my team (they have no idea why the kidnappers would allow them to enjoy the ransom), leave the floor for 10 minutes, and she was returned with some new clothes.  The next team meeting we had at our local independent coffee shop (a weekly tradition), our favorite barista walked through the place with what looked like an address book, asking who had left it on the counter.  He brought it to me, opened it, and showed me a picture of Barbie that I had already been sent, but it was the first in a travel size photo album of Barbie’s trip on a cruise to Cabo and a trip to Colorado that the kidnappers had taken her on.”

Wow! Barbie is famous within the organization—and has enough frequent flyer miles to book her own trip to Vegas! Paula and her co-workers have demonstrated incredible creativity, ingenuity, team building and a positive work environment. What a marvelous example of constructive humor in the workplace. These are the kind of people you’d be lucky to have working for you!

When Humor is Part of The Corporate Culture

I had the chance to sit around the table with the most fun bunch of people recently. They weren’t humorists or comediennes—but they were funny as all get out—kind of like Seinfeld meets healthcare. And they love their work.

Moe Green, founder of Classic Care Pharmacy started his business 10 years ago with a handful of people. Today he has over 120 employees and services 125 long term care facilities. The corporate culture is fun, and his staff and his customers are raving fans.

While having lunch with two of the team (Judy and Girish) they told me they hate to miss even a day of work. “There’s something going on everyday, and most of the time it’s fun!” they said. Apparently the rest of the staff agrees with them. The camaraderie and team spirit is palpable when you walk in the office.

As far as retention goes, people who come on board tend to stay on board. “We don’t brag too loudly to others about how good we have it here,” teased a couple of gals following my after-dinner entertainment. “We don’t want a bunch of other people vying for our jobs!”

From chatting with Moe, two keys to Classic Care’s success became obvious. First, he’s a firm believer in empowering his people. “When issues come up, I let them make decisions. There’s rarely an issue that is life or death.” Engaging his employees in company matters helps them to feel ownership. Once a month he holds a “State of The Union” address where he collects all 125 people and gives them updates on what’s going on and gets their feedback. And all of the executive team have an open door policy.

Second, fun is part of the corporate culture and it begins with the interview process. Moe is looking to hire for attitude and if the interviewee isn’t comfortable with the joking and teasing that goes on with the interview committee, then it’s made clear that this is part of the culture. If he or she feels uncomfortable, then perhaps they would be better off working elsewhere—the company isn’t going to change its culture just because someone doesn’t want to play along. Throughout the year, employees spend time together at potlucks, bar-b-ques, sports and just hanging out. They are an extended family.

The weekly executive meetings usually include gales of laughter. “Sometimes staff will come over and close our door because we’re laughing so loud,” Moe admitted.

What’s the result of all this? It comes as no surprise that Classic Care Pharmacy Ottawa was just named one of The Top 10 Employers in the National Capital Region (based on engagement, leadership and over-all employee satisfaction). This award was not just for healthcare but for businesses across the province. And Classic Care continues to grow at an astounding rate: 30% in the last 10 months!

When humor is part of the corporate culture, businesses can enjoy tremendous financial success—but that’s not all. George Burns once said, “Do something you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.” It seems that Classic Care employees will never have to “work” again—and with clients as fun as Classic Care, neither will I!