I attended a very interesting lecture given by Dr. Sushil Bhatia at Suffolk University, Boston where he spoke about the importance of laughter to the creative process. He gave a most unusual but quite inspiring talk on innovation and new product development, but with a twist – he advocated the use of laughter to de-stress the person, to free the mind and open up the thinking processes of the mind at deeper levels. The title of the lecture was ‘Global New Product Development’ and even though Professor Bhatia touched on this subject, the main thrust of his lecture was the ‘art of laughter’ and its ability to free the mind, bringing it to a state of neutrality where it is ready to accept new ideas and ways of doing things, thus helping innovation and creativity.

In the current economic climate where there is endless doom and gloom on a daily basis, it is very easy to feel despondent and hopeless. Businesses are in survival mode and battening down the hatches to ride out the storm. It is safe to assume that there will be many casualties and that businesses who are not creative in how they operate will not survive. Customers, more than ever, are looking for quality and value and companies and businesses need to place a high level of importance on innovation in both the products and services provided and how they are produced and delivered. Innovation is the key to increased competitiveness and profitability and is vital at every level of a business - innovative ideas and their successful implementation need to flow through the organization.

Professor Bhatia advocated the idea that it is very difficult to be in a positive frame of mind at all times and that ‘thinking positive’ is overrated. If one has to constantly try and be upbeat, it can put a lot of pressure on the individual as they are always fighting to ‘think positive’ and not ‘think negative’. Instead, he suggests that by training the mind to ‘think neutral’ it will be easier to move the mind into a positive state and easier to prevent it going into a negative state. He suggested that ‘Art of laughter’ is the science and art of letting go, bringing our mind to a state of neutrality where it is ready to accept new ideas and ways of doing things, encouraging the use of the sub conscious mind. He maintained that the power of creativity associated with the sub conscious mind is huge and that thinking neutral brings the mind to a state of tranquillity where the subconscious mind is allowed to produce creative thoughts and ideas.

Professor Bhatia is not the only one who advocates the power of laughter – many studies have shown the positive effects of laughter and humour. The illustrious Mayo Clinic in a 2007 report stated that there are many positive short and long term benefits to including more laughter in our lives – research has shown that laughter lowers blood pressure, reduces stress hormones and boosts immune functions. It also triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s natural pain killers, and helps bring about greater job satisfaction and feelings of personal accomplishment.

Creativity guru Edward de Bono begins his book I Am Right — You Are Wrong by stating that humour is by far the most significant behaviour of the human mind. He goes on to explain the essential role of humour in finding new ways to think and see things, and how these new ways create new solutions. He describes how our minds get stuck in ruts and patterns and how these patterns can impede progress and innovation. He argues that humour is an important mechanism to get us out of these ruts. He stated that it has always surprised him how little attention philosophers have paid to humour, since it is a more significant process of mind than reason. Reason can only sort out perceptions, but the humour process is involved in changing them.

Another bestselling author, Daniel Goleman, in his book Emotional Intelligence, talks about the benefits of a good laugh to solving a problem requiring a creative solution. He maintains that laughter frees and unchains our minds to think more creatively. All the cobwebs and dust are just cleared away. Goleman talks about how mood changes can sway thinking and how people in good moods have a perceptual bias that leads them to be more expansive and positive in their thinking. He also says this good mood makes one more likely to be more adventurous or take more risks. He suggests that creative solutions require the presence of the adventurer and the risk-taker. Laughter brings good moods; laughter brings creativity (Goleman, 1996).

Konrad Lorenz (1996) in his book On Aggression says that heartily laughing together at the same thing helps people form an immediate bond. Laughter connects people with other people. When a magician performs, the audience and the magician are in a unique situation, because the magician’s job is to fool the audience and nobody likes to be a fool or be fooled. That's why many magicians use humour and laughter to help break down the barrier between them and the audience (Allen & Nicholls, 2007). If this can happen with a group of strangers, imagine the teambuilding effect of laughter on a group of people that work together. Perhaps the best teambuilding exercise of all would be to get people to laugh together.

So if laughter and humour improves health, creativity and collaboration, and reduces stress how could any modern day manager leave it out of his arsenal of effective management tools? It is probably not practicable to down tools on a regular basis to engage in group laughing exercises, but there is probably a lot to be said for encouraging humour and laughter in an organisation. The encouragement of both formal structured teambuilding exercises and more informal social occasions which involve laughter must surely be of benefit to the people in the organisation and subsequently the organisation itself.

In today’s economic climate where it’s survival of the fittest, anything which encourages increased creativity and innovation within an organisation must be welcomed. The business environment is changing at a faster pace than ever and creative thinking and innovative solutions are going to be essential to stay one step ahead of the competition. Alternative forms of medicine, many of which originated in the East, are now accepted as legitimate and successful forms of healing, so perhaps it is time to embrace some more alternative forms of business ‘health’ management. Edward De Bono maintains that far too much time is spent on logical thinking as a result of a mode of thinking that goes back as far as the famous Greek philosophers. He maintains that the philosophers neglected humour completely and that humour illustrates very well the logic of perception which is different from the logic of reason. He states that logical argument has never been successful at changing beliefs, prejudices, emotions or perception – these can only be changed through perception. So is it time for the modern manager to become less logic focused and more perception focused in order to achieve that competitive edge? Is laughter and humour the secret weapon which will help him or her to do this? Perhaps Professor Sushil Bhatia’s crazy laughing exercises in Suffolk University were not so crazy after all!

Margaret Fleming
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