The ROI of LOL: How Laughter Breaks Down Walls, Drives Compelling Storytelling, and Creates a Healthy Workplace

Laughter is a powerful remedy to what ails today’s teams and organizations.

There are a host of neuroscientific explanations for why laughter makes us feel so great. Laughter triggers "feel good" chemicals in the brain which activate opiate receptors throughout your body and mind. Creating a workplace culture in which laughter is not only allowed but expected is an important step in building the trust, openness, authenticity, storytelling, and teamwork (TOAST) that are essential to any healthy collaborative environment. It also has a role in fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion—as explained in a special afterword from Malcolm Frierson, PhD, Loyola Marymount University on the role of comedy in DEI training.

What all this means for your business is that by harnessing the prodigious power of your own unique individual sense of humor (and empowering your employees to do the same), you can increase morale, collaboration, communication, and productivity. You can find new and unexpected ways to connect with your external stakeholders. And you can have fun doing it.

• Learn the role laughter plays in the five critical elements of a strong corporate culture: Trust, Openness, Authenticity, Storytelling, and Teamwork.
• Understand how the skills learned by stand-up comics like reading a room, being vulnerable or self-deprecating, listening, and overcoming objections are critical to leaders in today’s business climate.
• See how improv fosters teamwork and can be a unifying force in any organization.
• Gain insights into how other kinds of comedy like sketch comedy and creative collaboration can be applied in a business setting to build critical skill sets.