Humor in Business

With the advancement of computer simulators, anybody can repeat all the business routines before he goes to the field, and have the opportunity of relaxing from the tedious work with numbers. The businessman can concentrate more on the human factors: The Customer Service, the relationships among fellow workers, and self care.

The occupation with Human factors is obligation to deal with emotions. Emotions volumes are not measurable accurately, contrary to cognitive or physical volumes. We can measure I.Q., or weight lifting, but not the intensity of love or hate. Questionnaires about satisfaction from a product or a boss give very limited answers.

The reason we cannot measure emotions is that they expand all the time. This is their main attribute. It gives them their most unique quality: The ability to identify with the other and be empathic. We can memorize cognitive or physical practices, but with emotions we are left bare like children in a barren field. This leaves the businessman exposed to mistakes of emotional intelligence, and the computers cannot help him.

There is nothing better then the sense of humor, the best therapy for the soul, for illuminating the human factor. The definition of humor is: Emotions made precise. It derives directly from an overloaded mind, which seeks to facilitate the feelings he faces with others. Every accurate expression of emotion is followed by it, as part of a relief.

Every business deal is a transaction of emotions. These are accurate emotions, purified through the long bargaining process. Between the negotiating sides, after a deal closing, comes immediately a mutual sense of emotional relief. While it fade away down, It create a by product, in the form of lightness of the spirit, a humor.

The precision of humor observations makes them suitable for the businessmen training. There is a use for humor in all the aspects of human relations at work, but it is limited, in scale and methods. There are humor workshops for businessmen, but they are relatively rare, in contrast to the amount of time dedicated for self improvement.

Starting at the morning meetings, through the motivation papers, and finally with the private learning, the average businessman provide himself constantly with emotional intelligence advice. Compare the percentage of humor in it to humor in ordinary life, and you will find that while daily life is a continuous effort for laugher, business life is a cooperated effort for making life more serious and heavier.

The businessman needs a steady supply of concrete, healthy humor. Otherwise he may turn into acidly cynic person.

One medium of humor, the Cartoon, is more suitable then others for the Businessman. The Visual aspect of the cartoon makes it easy to grasp the content. It affords a visual relaxation in the visually intensive world of business.

Humor in business is not as simple as it looks like. It demands professionalism both in humor and business. It has to be precise. Otherwise there is a danger of getting out of focus. Laser precision is part of any humor. If the target is missed, the damage is big.

Two major daily cartoon series deals directly with the business world. One is Dilbert, by Scott Adams. You can find it at the link:

http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/index.html

Another one is the Daily Cartoon by Randy Glasbergen. You can find it at the link:

http://pub49.bravenet.com/cartoon/show.php?usernum=4194105148

Let us compare between the two cartoon series.

Dilbert has not a very inspiring affect. The characters are clumsy. They create clumsier situations. It is the result of incriminating surface behavior. It is very hard to understand them. We laugh at them, without very much intellectual gratification.

The Daily Cartoon by Randy Glasbergen is much more sophisticated. A delicate situation, the result of internal acting forces, is in the center, and not a character. The situation is always a very sharp event of people behavior, mostly regarding money. The elusive world of money making motives finds here its accurate, funny representation. The characters serve just as a mean for clarification. The subject is not a certain character with unique attributes, but a situation with a strong common background, that anyone can encounter.

This makes the Daily Cartoon by Randy Glasbergen a favorable choice for the business world. Imagine if we could apply it on a daily practical basis. We would laugh all the way to the bank.

To do so, we need a closer focus on business themes. Anybody can identify and act properly, when facing a situation that was represented in a cartoon with dynamic replacing of characters.

The need is for sophisticated cartoons is huge. It is a human problems solving technique. Whenever I open the http://pub49.bravenet.com/cartoon/show.php?usernum=4194105148 website, I find new concrete inspirations regarding business activities, and, as a bonus, guides for other aspects of life like health, family and self improvement.

The Daily Cartoon by Randy Glasbergen combines intensity with sophistication. A new cartoon is published once a day, and it is backed up by a huge archive.

I suggest The Daily Cartoon as the best way for introducing emotional intelligence to the business world. The subjects of the cartoons deals directly with the modern business arena of: computers and Internet work, management and workers, Decision making, work morality, and so on. It covers in exactingness almost any field, with a very positive affect.

The next step is to take The Daily Cartoons to a higher level: increase the circulation, add more sub topics from the business world, and find a way of implementing them to the infrastructure of the daily business work, for a better world.

About The Author

Avinoam Amizan is the owner and the webmaster of: http://pub49.bravenet.com/cartoon/show.php?usernum=4194105148. He has diplomas in teaching and marketing from various institutes in Israel.

avira1@netvision.net.il

In The News:

Yahoo! News: Top Stories

Palestinian demonstrators use sling-shots to hurl stones at Israeli soldiers during a demonstration against Israel's military operation in Gaza, in the West Bank village of Bilin, near Ramallah,Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009. Israel resumed its Gaza offensive Wednesday after a three-hour lull to allow delivery of humanitarian aid, bombing heavily around suspected smuggling tunnels near the border with Egypt. Despite the heavy fighting, strides appeared to be being made on the diplomatic front with the U.S. throwing its weight behind a deal being brokered by France and Egypt. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)AP - The U.N. Security Council called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, but an intense bombardment of missiles from Israeli jets and helicopters early Friday and a barrage of Hamas rockets indicated there may be no quick end to the fighting.



In this Monday, Dec. 29, 2008 file image provided by Greenpeace, coal ash slurry left behind in a containment pond near the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant is shown  in Harriman, Tenn., after the dyke at left broke Dec. 22, 2008. Millions of tons of toxic coal ash is piling up in power plant ponds in 32 states, a practice the federal government has long recognized as a risk to human health and the environment but has left unregulated. (AP Photo/Greeenpeace, Wade Payne)AP - Millions of tons of toxic coal ash is piling up in power plant ponds in 32 states, a practice the federal government has long recognized as a risk to human health and the environment but has left unregulated.



President-elect Barack Obama makes remarks on the nations economy, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009, at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)AP - President-elect Barack Obama's proposed tax cuts ran into opposition Thursday from senators in his own party who said they wouldn't do much to stimulate the economy or create jobs. Senators from both parties agreed that Congress should do something to stimulate the economy. But Democratic senators emerging from a private meeting of the Senate Finance Committee criticized business and individual tax cuts in Obama's stimulus plan.



Florida's Tim Tebow (15) throws a pass over Oklahoma's Auston English (33) during the third quarter of the BCS Championship NCAA college football game in Miami, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)AP - The game defied expectations. Tim Tebow fulfilled them. He rescued No. 1 Florida, running through and throwing over No. 2 Oklahoma for a 24-14 victory Thursday night that gave the Gators their second BCS championship in three years.



Rep. Jack Franks (D-Woodstock) votes to recommend the impeachment of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to the House during an Illinois House Impeachment Committee hearing Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009, in Springfield, Ill. The committee voted unanimously to recommend impeachment putting the matter before the full house.  (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)AP - A key panel unanimously recommended impeachment for Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Thursday, setting up a vote that could make him the first governor to face such fate in Illinois' sordid political history. Blagojevich should lose his job for abusing power, mismanaging government and committing possible criminal acts, including federal allegations he tried to sell off a U.S. Senate seat, the special committee concluded.



A sign instructs job seekers at the California Employment Development Department in Sunnyvale, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009. The country lost nearly 2 million jobs through November and more bad news is expected this week when the government releases data on weekly jobless claims and December unemployment. No matter how bad those numbers are, and economists expect at least another 500,000 jobs were lost last month, the pain is stretching into 2009.  (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)AP - Trying to survive a deepening recession, employers are cutting their work forces to the bone, leaving more Americans unemployed and with dim prospects of finding a new job any time soon.



Freida Pinto backstage with the best picture award for 'Slumdog Millionaire' at the 14th Annual Critics' Choice Awards on Thursday Jan. 8, 2009 in Santa Monica, Calif. (AP Photo/Dan Steinberg)AP - The critics have spoken, and "Slumdog Millionaire" is their final answer.



Neel Kashkari, the assistant treasury secretary in charge of the bailout program, speaks at the Brookings Institution in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)AP - Less than a month after its first report, a congressional panel overseeing the Treasury Department's $700 billion financial bailout is demanding more answers.



Vice President Dick Cheney pauses during an interview with the Associated Press at the White House in Washington Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)AP - Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday that he sees no reason for President George W. Bush to pre-emptively pardon anyone at the CIA involved in harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists. "I don't have any reason to believe that anybody in the agency did anything illegal," he said.



Recruiter Sgt. Mario Ashe (L) and Christopher Stevens talk in the tactical operations center area of the U.S. Army Experience center at the Franklin Mills mall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 7, 2009. The U.S. Army, struggling to ensure it has enough manpower as it fights wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is wooing young Americans with video games, Google maps and simulated attacks on enemy positions from an Apache helicopter. Departing from the recruiting environment of metal tables and uniformed soldiers in a drab military building, the Army has invested $12 million in a facility that looks like a cross between a hotel lobby and a video arcade. Picture taken January 7, 2009. (Tim Shaffer/Reuters)AP - U.S. policy to win in Afghanistan must recognize the poor nation's limitations and its neighborhood, especially its intertwined relationship with U.S. terrorism-fighting ally Pakistan, the top U.S. military commander in the region said Thursday.



Israelis take cover before a rocket fired by Palestinians in Gaza lands in Beersheba, after they attended the funeral of Israeli soldier Alex Mashavisky, January 7, 2009. (Eric Gaillard/Reuters)Reuters - Israel pushed ahead with its offensive in the Gaza Strip on Friday, ignoring a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in the 14-day-old conflict.



Jaclyn Holt (R) fills out an application form at a job fair organized by the New Hampshire Employment Security agency in Salem, New Hampshire December 17, 2008. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)Reuters - U.S. employers probably cut the most jobs in at least 34 years last month as the global economic crisis gathered pace and moves by policy makers took time to filter through to struggling companies.



Reuters - A report being released on Friday alleges that the U.S. Treasury has failed to reveal its strategy for stabilizing the financial system, not answered questions asked by a government watchdog, and has done nothing to help struggling homeowners, the Wall Street Journal said.

A man works near a pressure gauge at a district heating plant in Skopje January 8, 2009. (Ognen Teofilovski/Reuters)Reuters - Europe sought a swift restoration of gas supplies on Friday after striking a deal with Moscow on monitoring gas shipments via Ukraine that have been halted by a pricing dispute with Kiev.



People taking the Long Island Foreclosure Tour arrive at a foreclosed home for sale in New Hyde Park, New York in this May 17, 2008 file photo. Citigroup could soon agree to principles that would let troubled borrowers save their homes through bankruptcy, sources familiar with the talks said on Thursday, while industry groups are easing their opposition to the plan. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)Reuters - Financial giant Citigroup Inc will support a proposal in Congress to rewrite U.S. bankruptcy law to help troubled mortgage borrowers avoid foreclosure, Chief Executive Vikram Pandit said on Thursday.



Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich gestures as he announces former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris as his choice to fill the vacant U.S. Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama during a news conference in Chicago, Illinois December 30, 2008. (Frank Polich/Reuters)Reuters - A legislative committee on Thursday recommended the impeachment of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, citing widespread abuse of power including allegations he tried to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.



Timothy Geithner (R), pictured in Chicago, November 24, 2008. (Jeff Haynes/Reuters)Reuters - President-elect Barack Obama's economic team is urgently overhauling the $700 billion financial rescue package to broaden its scope beyond Wall Street, The Washington Post reported on Friday.



Usama al-Kini, Al Qaeda's operations chief in Pakistan, is pictured in this undated FBI Most Wanted photograph. Al-Kini, also known as Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam, and a top aide are believed to be dead, a U.S. counterterrorism official said on January 8, 2009, in what appeared to be the latest results of a campaign targeting the militant group's leadership. Operations chief al-Kini was thought responsible for attacks, including the bombing of a Marriott hotel in Islamabad that killed 55 people in September, and an unsuccessful attempt to kill former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was later assassinated in a separate attack, the official said. (FBI/Handout/Reuters)Reuters - Al Qaeda's operations chief in Pakistan and a top aide are believed to be dead, a U.S. counterterrorism official said on Thursday, in what appeared to be the latest results of a campaign targeting the militant group's leadership.



An Israeli army tank takes position on a hill at the border between Israel and the northern Gaza Strip on January 8, 2009. Israel was under intense pressure Friday to end its two-week-old offensive in the Gaza Strip after the UN Security Council called for an immediate ceasefire as the death toll from the war rose past 760.(AFP/David Buimovitch)AFP - Israel carried out new deadly air raids on the Gaza Strip on Friday as the UN Security Council called for an immediate ceasefire to end the two-week-old conflict in the Palestinian enclave.



A man carries firewood in the suburbs of Sofia, Bulgaria. European states deprived of Russian gas amid freezing weather were Friday hoping for a resumption of deliveries after the European Union claimed a breakthrough in the crisis between Moscow and Kiev.(AFP/Dimitar Dilkoff)AFP - European states deprived of Russian gas amid freezing weather were Friday hoping for a resumption of deliveries after the European Union claimed a breakthrough in the crisis between Moscow and Kiev.




Management Apathy

I recently received a most interesting phone call.When I answered the phone,... Read More

Creativity and Innovation Directors, Consultants and Managers

Creativity and Innovation is essential for competitive advantage, yet the role of... Read More

Building the Trust in Your Employees - 12 Easy Tips

In Stephen Covey's great book, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People",... Read More

Preventative Maintenance of Company Delivery Vehicles

If you have company delivery vehicles at your small or medium sized... Read More

Provisioning/User Management System Upgrades: Part I -- Ten Reasons Why Not To Do An Upgrade

Tommy Sherman daily monitors a helpdesk-provisioning queue for a large company. The... Read More

Business Opportunity - Leverage Your Employees!

As a business asset, they don't sit well on the P&L statement.... Read More

Innovation Management ? idea selection, development and commercialisation, what are the differences?

Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation... Read More

Seeking Help

Where does the time go? Billable time. As a consultant, your practice... Read More

The Power of the Contract in Performance Management

An essential step in managing the performance of salespeople is that of... Read More

Make It Easy to Reply - Voice Mail That Works

If you are like most business people, voice mail has both simplified... Read More

Objects in the Mirror are Further Than They Appear

Definition From http://www.merriamwebster.com -- "Virtual: - being such in essence or effect... Read More

The Measurement of Manager Training

THE MEASUREMENT OF TRAINING: Evaluation is one of the most valuable -... Read More

Nonprofit Performance: Outcome Measurement Can Be A Good Thing

Does the idea of program evaluation make your stomach churn? If so,... Read More

Problem-Solving Success Tip: Look For Sponsors And Solution Owners

Look for sponsors and solution owners rather than problem owners.Everyone participating in... Read More

Great Hires: Avoid Costly Mistakes

Picking people for a job is like going to the... Read More

Eliminate Performance Anxiety Forever

You've had many years of training in your craft as a performer,... Read More

Management Team Section of Business Plans

Writing an award winning business plan is a great skill, but rather... Read More

Effective Meetings Begin With a Real Agenda

Everyone knows that an agenda is the key to an effective meeting.... Read More

5 Steps to Identify Core Processes

Part Two of Creating Well-Defined Processes SeriesNext Week: ImplementationLast week, we raised... Read More

Look Good on Voice Mail

Your use of voice mail tells others a lot about you. Here's... Read More

Business Innovation ? the Value of Structure

Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation... Read More

ISO 9001 Okay Now You Have It How Do You Market It?

Marketing ISO 9001 2000.Lately we've been seeing a lot of press releases... Read More

Burger on a Bun Decision Making

When approaching any decision, it's important for individuals to maintain the healthy... Read More

Implementing Change

There are different reactions that individuals experience during time of change. Understanding... Read More

Innovation Management: The Quality and Quantity of the Idea Pool

Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation... Read More

Give Yourself a Boss? Day Gift

Become a better boss and reap the benefitsAnother interesting study was done.... Read More

Uncommon Common Sense ? Know What is the Most Important Thing in Your Business

Over 3 of my meetings with 3 business owners last week, what... Read More

Assertiveness Helps Accomplish Everything

When trying to get something accomplished, assertive behavior is the most effective.... Read More

Computer Consulting 101 Hiring Tips (Part 1 of 2)

Does your business need the services of a computer consulting firm? Before... Read More

Quick Tip - Effective Meetings Have a Complete Agenda

Most agendas for a meeting look like this.* Budget* Payroll* Staff* Sales*... Read More

How to Keep a Good Employee: Look, Listen, Learn

Recently a client told me a wonderful story about how a change... Read More

Assessing Managers for International Competence

How do you select staff for international assignments? It's an important question... Read More

Lets Flourish and Prosper!

Some say that in business as in sex: if it is good,... Read More

Budgets!

Budgets! There I've said it. For some the most hated and feared... Read More

Biometrics and ?Return On Investment?

At this time of tight budgets, the mantra of business is "Return... Read More

The Three-Dimensional Communication System

Human communication is always three-dimensional. No spoken or written message is ever... Read More

Feedback - Make it Descriptive

Have you ever heard yourself say to a team member - "You're... Read More

Business Relationship Germs

In management seminars I often compare debt to an infection. A reasonable... Read More

On the Road to Assertiveness

Learning to be assertive takes time, courage and the ability to recognize... Read More

Communication: Managements Responsibility

I've just watched, again, an episode in the Back to the Floor... Read More

Tales from the Corporate Frontlines: Workplace Ethics: Reaching the Highest Standard

This article relates to the Ethics in the Workplace competency, commonly evaluated... Read More

Regaining Control - Nine Steps for New Managers

My client had faced the same challenge, which was frustrating as well... Read More

Innovation Management ? does the idea fit with the firm?

Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation... Read More

Five Ways to Influence Change in Others

Because of my work as a consultant, trainer and coach I deal... Read More

Project Managment: Land the Plane Stop Doing and Start Succeeding

We all spend time on planning vacations. If it's not you then... Read More

6 Steps To Effective Management During Change

Take the pain out of gain and decrease the upheaval surrounding change... Read More

Workplace Violence - People are Dying Going to Work

Workplace violence has become a tragic reality today. From minor instances of... Read More