Download Ingratiate yourself with bosses, colleagues through humor

Publication: Gannett News Service
Date: 30 June 2011
Headline: Ingratiate yourself with bosses, colleagues through
humor
Ingratiate yourself with bosses, colleagues through humor
755 words
30 June 2011
Gannett News Service
By ANITA BRUZZESE
There's no shortage of advice on how to attract someone who interests you personally: Be
more upbeat, wear your hair differently, don certain clothes, be a good listener.
The list is endless.
Yet many of us remain clueless about how to attract a potential employer or how to get the
boss to notice us for career opportunities.
The secret: Many of the things that attract us to someone personally are also key
ingredients needed to help us get ahead on the job. That doesn't mean you try to move
things from a professional level to a personal one with a co-worker or boss just to climb the
career ladder, but it does mean that you can leverage some of your personal traits to make
professional inroads.
A good sense of humor can help you professionally. Norman Li, a psychology associate
professor at Singapore Management University who studies relationships, says he's
found that laughter can be a key indicator of a person's interest in you.
So if you're in a job interview and the hiring manager is cracking jokes -- no matter how
lame -- that's a good sign. If you make an interviewer laugh, that's an equally encouraging
sign.
"In general if someone likes you, they will laugh at something you say, or they try to make
you laugh, as well," he says. "It's all about the laws of attraction."
In a blog post in Psychology Today, Li relates a story of how he became interested in the
part laughter plays in relationships while working on a project. He writes that he didn't laugh
at jokes told by supervisors he didn't like even though co-workers would chuckle along
when the bosses made comments.
"The implications became clear on the day that we all received our performance reviews,"
he says in the post. "While those other guys were smiling at their glowing reviews, I was left
wondering whether my subpar appraisal might've been better had I laughed at any of those
jokes."
Laughter may be part of the success equation, Li says.
Most workers spend the majority of their waking hours with people at work, sharing
challenges, eating meals together, coordinating activities -- and learning whom to depend
on. Those activities mimic what takes place in personal relationships, so it's not surprising
that many of the things that attract us to a potential spouse also attract us to certain people
at work.
Publication: Gannett News Service
Date: 30 June 2011
Headline: Ingratiate yourself with bosses, colleagues through
humor
That means that women, who through the ages have looked for mates that can are capable
and have social status, may be drawn to successful, powerful men in the workplace and
seek them out for professional collaborations, Li says. On the other hand, men always have
sought women they deem physically attractive, so they may team up first at work with
women they find appealing.
Laughing with others -- or prompting others to laugh -- can set a tone for relationships at
work. As in your personal life, getting someone to laugh is really a way to monitor a
relationship.
A husband who cracks a joke and is met with a chilly silence from a wife probably knows
that something is wrong.
At work, co-workers who continue to laugh at your jokes or bosses that chuckle at your
humor give you a sense that you are still on good footing with them. But a colleague who
suddenly doesn't even crack a smile at your attempts to be funny may indicate a problem.
In a study of humor and relationships, Li and his colleagues found that "humor may allow
individuals to indicate the direction of their interest and to build relationships incrementally."
So, if you do your best Jim Carrey impression or tell your favorite joke tomorrow and the
boss doesn't react, you may need to check for a problem in the relationship.
After all, you don't want the last laugh on you.
--Anita Bruzzese is author of "45 Things You Do That Drive Your Boss Crazy . . . and How to Avoid Them,"
www.45things.com. Write to her in care of Gannett ContentOne, 7950 Jones Branch Drive, McLean, Va.
22107. For a reply, include a self-addressed, stamped envelope.
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