Using humour in internal comms | S1 E26 cover art

Using humour in internal comms | S1 E26

Using humour in internal comms | S1 E26

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 Using Humour in Internal Comms In this episode of Engaging Internal Comms, The Big Picture People’s Craig Smith talks to Costanza Tobino about using humour in internal comms. Costanza’s work experience ranges from marketing to internal communications and employee engagement. She has previously worked for companies such as Pearson and Gap, and currently she is the Global Internal Communications Manager at Stats Perform, a leading technology company in sports data. Stats Perform’s mission is to provide better sports predictions and insights by using data and artificial intelligence, bringing the deepest breadth of data, sports research, sports news, and video content. Headquartered in Chicago and London, Stats Perform has offices around the world. As Global Internal Comms Manager, it’s Costanza’s job to unite everybody, and ensure all employees are collaborating, connected, and integrated. Costanza has led numerous communication projects involving change integration, mergers, acquisitions, executive leadership, product launches, corporate social responsibility, learning and development, and community engagement. Her biggest interests are in powerful communications, video, new technologies, and humour, which is what Craig will be discussing with Costanza in this podcast. The power of humour as a communication tool While humour is defined as the quality of being amusing or comical, Costanza explains that humour in the context of communication within an organisation is very different. Humour is a powerful tool that can ignite an emotional connection with an audience, which is crucial when a message is to be conveyed. Engaging communications produce positive emotions and essentially positive behaviours from individual employees, teams, and organisations as an entirety. Describing humour in internal communications, Costanza says, “It’s a form of emotional intelligence, and if used appropriately, you can contribute to employee wellbeing, human flourishing, and also the creation of meaningful connections, and better employee engagement.” Breaking down internal communication barriers Craig and Costanza discuss how humour can break down the barriers of communication that are often barricaded with corporate-style rigid communication methods. With messages encrypted within a humorous and engaging presentation, the importance of the root message is carefully disguised as fun. Perhaps most importantly, this engrains the message within the audience for the long term. When something is made fun and memorable, an individual will recall it throughout their profession. This is very powerful within an organisation’s communications. Ensuring sensitivity before humour Humour, of course, must always be handled with care and sensitivity. There are many factors internal comms people must consider when using humour to communicate, such as:
  • Religion
  • Culture
  • Politics
  • Social issues
  • Health issues
If humour is not adjusted accordingly, it can have a very detrimental and unnecessarily negative effect on an organisation’s people. “Humour is a form of emotional intelligence, which can be broken down into self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and social skills,” says Costanza. “As leaders and communicators, we need to rely on all these skills and fully exploit our emotional intelligence to identify situations and circumstances where you would be perceived as, for example, disrespectful or insensitive.” Internal comms people must directly use emotional intelligence and be highly self-aware of potential negative reactions to humour. Why humour is an essential ingredient in communicati...
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