"What is the role of humor in a learning organization?"
Many years ago in a far away land called "The 60s" I was an earnest and
terribly naive political activist out to save the world. One of my early
and most important lessons from those days was that the political
activists, of whatever persuasion, who lacked a sense of humor always
seemed to share two characteristics: 1) they KNEW what was good for all
the rest of us and 2) they were quite willing to impose their solution on
everybody (for our own good, of course!). It didn't seem to matter
whether these folks were right wing or left wing, if they lacked a sense
of humor, they scared me.
James March, one of our more eminent and sensible organization theorists,
has a lovely little article on play and its importance as a management
strategy (in a collection edited by Pugh).
Humor seems to me to be an absolutely essential element in change
processes. It helps us bond and trust each other while we do some real
risky stuff. It also allows us to try out alternative perspectives and
examine assumptions in non-threatening ways. Humor helps to loosen the
existing arrangements so we can begin to think and act in new ways.
-- Barry Clemson Center for Organizational Systems Engineering Old Dominion University bclemson@aol.com