Translator: Mayara Fortin Reviewer: Denise RQ I work with comedy, I am a comedian, but I don't want to talk about the comedy I make I want to talk about comedy's practical use in daily life for those who do not work with it. Anyone can make use of humor in their daily routine, for practical ends. First: how good humor is an important tool in changing behavior.
I see that people always believe that in order to change their behavior, there has to be pressure, some punishment has to be in play, some penalty they don't do that, be penalized; or will earn some money. And many times, you manage to make people change their behavior just by adding a smile, a fun touch, a touch of it is cooler to do it this way because it is fun to do it this way. And you don't need to always make money relate to the story, right?
There is an event in which, instead of giving traffic tickets to people that ran a red light, everyone who ran a green light had their license plate stored, and then was in a raffle at the end of the day. So, instead of punishing who did wrong, why not favor who did right? So, this is the first thing I wanted to talk about, good humor as a tool for changing behavior.
This can be applied in larger scales, as in a City Hall scale, a Government scale, a company scale, as well as inside your house, with your kids. The second thing is based on my work from 2011, "internship interview". It was a video I made, in which I played an intern, a stereotyped intern on a pejorative side, meaning that intern who only does stupid things, does it all wrong, who pretends to be doing something so no one asks him to do anything, because they think they are doing something, get it?
The HRs, teachers and consultants, started using this video as an educational tool, because through comedy, it talks about what not to do, but as a consequence sends the message of what to do: "Do the opposite of what I am doing"; this is the message. This actually fits to talk about the second thing, which is humor as a tool to deliver contents, as the contents gets a lot more interesting when you add a smile to the story. I now see this buzz about the Generation Y, which is a generation that doesn't pay attention to anything, lacks focus, is hard to deal with, doesn't let go of their phones.
They keep criticizing the young, and I always think: do they really lack focus, or is the information really boring? Hasn't the world changed and you just keep passing on knowledge, passing on information, in such a boring way that, the young changed and can't take it anymore? They are not the ones who have to change; they are the future, you are the past.
You handle them the knowledge the wrong way. You have to adapt to this youth, not want to change all of them from a new generation, got it? They have more technology, more issues with focus, but if you give them information in a interesting way, it doesn't have to be comic, incredibly funny, it only needs to be more interesting, to cause them to smirk.
I also haven't invented this, obviously. Actually, everyone has had a teacher who had a great class. This is Pachecão, one of the most famous in Brasil.
He gives a lot of talks. Everyone's had that teacher who played music, made jokes, who made some interesting analogies and all. As a comedian, in the world of comedy, we use humor as the end.
Humour is, in the end, what we give to people. If you stop to think of it, for a professor, like Pachecão, who teaches an interesting class, who works with education, the ends are the information. He has to pass on information, but he makes use of humour as the means.
This made me have an insight, like, "Well, why am I using humor as the end? Wouldn't it be more logical to use humor as the means, to use my humoristic skills to deliver relevant knowledge? This is the second thing, humor as a way of delivering information.
The third thing is a fairly recent one . . .
early this year, I put together a class on creativity when solving problems. I've decided to apply everything I'd been studying on creativity for solving problems in a creative way. In this course I talk about divergent thinking, about many techniques, brainstorming and, within brainstorming, there is a tiny thing, a hint, I give, as the following: before starting brainstorming, ask, "What is the worst possible solution for this problem?
" Every brainstorming aims to solve an issue. The big problem I see with brainstorming is that first: people are afraid of exposing themselves, of talking shit. Then, people judge their solution first on their minds, and, if they think it is good, they talk; they judge first and talk after; and this prejudgement is totally opposed to the purpose of a brainstorming.
The brainstorming is a moment without judgements. It is a moment for divergent thinking, not for convergent thinking. To solve this issue of fear of exposure, I always suggest this, and it works a lot: start thinking of the worst possible solution; why?
When people start overthinking the worst possible solution, the most stupid idea, what happens in the room? First, it relaxes the atmosphere, obviously, there is some laughter, people laugh about the stupid solution and all, and there's a fight on who says the silliest thing. Secondly, it levels down the ideas, meaning, you take your solutions to such a low level that when the moment comes, it will improbable that you give a solution worse than the other.
Then, you are not ashamed of presenting solutions anymore, because the worst ones have already been given. You get much more opened in not judging your mind and exposing yourself. Secondly, it allows you to go far, let your imagination go wild as we say it.
Because when people will solve brainstorming issues, they always have a creative block, and when you say that it is the worst possible solution, people go so wild, and this wild, in the moment of truth, works many times because from this wild, you bring a little bit to reality and end up getting to a viable solution. Then you went far, got the audio issue off the way and maybe created the solution, no one would have thought off if there was no freedom to go wild. So, this is one example .
. . whenever I propose this in a brainstorming session, do you know what happens then?
Everyone in there becomes a Brighella. Everyone becomes the one to solve things in a creative way. Everyone starts thinking of solutions that the Brighella would think of.
Some a bit bad, some on the good side, some more viable, some too crazy, but everyone becomes a Brighella at this point. And what was the Brighella? He was the stereotype of comedy, whose main trait was, precisely, being malicious; he would always solve problems in a creative way.
OK, so this is the third thing: humor as tool for unblocking creativity, in order to eliminate those paradigms that block us. This was also not invented by me. Long ago, in the court, the king had one know man that everyone has heard of: the jester, whose purpose was not to make jokes, as everyone thinks.
The purpose of the jester was to make the king take different paths for solving problems. He was the only man authorized to question the king, to criticize the king, and no one cared, cause he was the jester, he only said foolish things, he was the Brighella. Actually, he was the Harlequin, another archetype, with a touch of Brighella.
Then the jester had the purpose of making the king go outside the box, and think of different solutions, and everyone thought, "Oh, this man is so funny! " and the king, "OK, I got the message. " So, the jester had a strategic purpose in the court.
The message I want to pass is: use comedy as a tool for changing behavior, passing on information and unblocking creativity. And, most importantly, try to incorporate the Brighella in your lives. Thank you very much.
