Catching up with Karyn

MIZ...

I know I sound like Sally Field when I say, "You like me! You really like me!" but I've got to tell you, that's absolutely how I felt when I got the news that my alma mater - the Sinclair School of Nursing, my beloved Mizzou - has decided to honor me with a Certificate of Merit. Thrilled doesn't even begin to express my emotional state - it's awesome, inspiring, and humbling all at once.

Nursing school changed my life. You walk into those classes thinking you know a little something about health care - and then your eyes are opened to all the amazing, amusing, and yes, awe-inspiring things that nurses do every single day.  The lessons I learned while working on my Master's at Mizzou have served me well, through every day of my nursing career and beyond.

The research I was able to do in those early days, my first tentative explorations into the connection between health and humor, was successful and bore fruit due to the encouragement and support I received at that time....

Nurses are known for their compassion, clinical expertise, and ability to work a 12-hour shift without ever once needing to eat or use the bathroom. Okay, that last bit was a joke, but now I'm being deadly serious. Leadership is one of the most essential nursing skills you can develop. That's why I'm grateful to Ellice Cooper for creating and sharing this super informative infographic, The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Nurse Leader.

The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Nurse Leader features 10 chapters, jam-packed with useful, insightful information and valuable resources you can use to assist you on your journey toward a leadership role. It's free, so I encourage you to check it out and share it with your friends and colleagues who may also be interested in nurse leadership.

Full disclosure: I have always found the traffic in New Jersey to be challenging. For as long as I can remember, the minute I got behind the wheel in the Garden State, something would happen to slow the journey way down. There have been the typical fender benders and weather-related snafus, of course, but there's also always been an added layer of strangeness to my particular journeys: one time, a tractor trailer full of tomatoes tipped over - we're talking marina sauce for miles! - and on another occasion, the delay was caused by approximately 75 million Justin Beiber fans en route to wherever it is 75 million Justin Beiber fans go.

But lately, there have been some traffic problems in New Jersey that have nothing to do with wayward produce or rock stars. As you may have heard, recent traffic problems in New Jersey may have had a political cause. On Friday, Governor Chris Christie held a long press conference in which he apologized for the traffic slowdowns, adding that the...

Humor is a powerful force. For more than 30 years, I've been researching, teaching, and speaking to groups about the ways they can use humor to lower stress, live healthier lives, be more productive in the workplace, and be happier at home. That's why I was absolutely heartbroken to learn that Jacintha Saldanha, a British nurse, took her own life after being duped by a radio DJ's prank.

This tragic incident reinforces the fact that humor is power. We all have a responsibility to understand how our humor impacts others. Pranks are a particularly problematic type of humor, as their entire humor value comes from someone else's pain and discomfort. Their fear, upset, or injury has become our source of amusement.

That's not healthy for us individually, and it's not healthy for us as a society. I've been very encouraged to see the discussions centering around the role of pranks in our media and culture. At a time when the problem of bullying is receiving so much attention, let's call...

To err is human. To blame someone else...that's politics!

Here we are, at long last - Election Day!  It's your chance to exercise your right to vote. Please do! To put a smile on your face before you head to the polls, here's some Election Day Humor:

The biggest problem with political jokes is that they get elected!

Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason.

What's So Funny About Diabetes: A Note About Political Humor
Political humor is intensely popular - just ask Jon Stewart! Jokes about politicians work well for late-night TV stars - but they can be pretty problematic in person. Etiquette experts tell us that it's best to avoid all humor about politics, religion, and any other contentious subject. Humor advocates, myself included, think that political humor has a place - but you do need to be careful with it.

Politics are intensely personal. The issues being discussed - healthcare, the economy, foreign policy, and more -...

You might not have an immediate answer to that question. Business is hard work. Owning and operating a business can consume your life.  Working for somebody else – whether that’s in operations, marketing, hr, or the dreaded accounting division – isn’t necessarily a piece of cake, either.  We devote tremendous amounts of time, energy, and resources to our work because so much depends on being successful.

Surely this is no laughing matter.

Laughing is the best thing you can do. We’d even argue that you have to laugh if you want to succeed. Don’t believe us? Just ask the people at Southwest.  Their uniquely humorous approach has earned them significant goodwill and provided them with a valuable differentiator in a crowded and competitive marketplace.

You see, it turns out that the strategic use of humor is one of the single most important tools businesses have at their disposal.  The ability to use humor:

• effectively attracts...

There’s absolutely nothing funny about the BP oil spill. No one would argue that – yet people are still laughing. (For example, see BP Spills Coffee)  If there’s one lesson we can take away from this entire tragedy, it’s that humor can fill numerous roles, some of which aren’t immediately obvious.

Humor Provides a Framework for Processing Tragedy

“The oil spill is getting bad,” David Letterman said, “There is so much oil and tar now in the Gulf of Mexico, Cubans can now walk to Miami.” Confronted with an environmental disaster of unimaginable scope, we reach for ways to make sense of it all. Letterman’s joke captured the scale of the spill in an unexpected way – weaving in some social commentary guaranteed to get a laugh from his audience -  deftly informing and assuring his audience that the situation was indeed that bad.

In a similar vein, we see the quips about BP’s new bio-degradable oil...

An experience that makes your customers ‘Feel Good’ is an experience that is going to bring those customers back to you. More than that, “Feel Good” creates word of mouth: customers love to tell their friends, co-workers, and at least some of their relatives about the fantastic time they’ve had, so that their friends, colleagues, and family can enjoy the experience as well.

The problem is that not everyone wants your customers (or patients, if you’re in a healthcare setting!) to feel good. In a book I’ve recently written with two of the smartest people I know (T. Scott Gross and Greg Ayers), we examined the three types of people you’ve probably got working for you, and how they feel about creating a “Feel Good” experience for your customers.

Never Teach a Pig to Sing…It Wastes Your Time and Irritates The Pig!

Not everyone is psychologically capable of extending “Feel Good” to perfect strangers....

Times are tough economically, markets are down and customers are cranky—even angry! Taking care of the employees who have to deal with these customers, and taking steps to make the environment less stressful, makes for a healthier, happier, and more productive workforce. And taking care of employees is exactly what the folks at First Allied set out to do.

In preparation for my presentation on humor and stress management (I’ve Got One Nerve Left—and You’re Standing on It!), I first met with Blake Bjordahl, Sr. VP and Director of Operations and got a personal tour of the operations in San Diego. I was delighted to see evidence of many employees who took their jobs seriously and themselves lightly. Cubicles were decorated with pictures, cartoons, and even Legos, In one area, nicknamed “The Playground,” a bookcase contained numerous games, books, and toys designed to help the staff de-stress. The vending machines were even subsidized so no one had to...

“A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership.”
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

The secret for effective humor in leadership is to set the tone for humor, while at the same time, set high expectations. Effective leaders understand that there are three primary benefits for using humor with their staff: Stress management, communication, and motivation.

Stress management
“Terminal professionalism” seems to be a sign of the times. But taking oneself too seriously can have some unpleasant side effects. According to a recent Gallup Poll approximately 1 million employees in the US miss work daily due to stress related conditions. Stressed out workers make costly mistakes; sometimes even deadly ones.

Humor is recognized as a healthy coping mechanism (as compared to unhealthy means, such as smoking, drinking, drugs, excessive work, etc). It is by no means the be-all-end-all. Today people need a variety of coping mechanisms to survive and thrive. Melodie Chenevert, author of...