HR, We Have a Problem - HR is no laughing matter - or is it? The strategic power of humor in HR to build trust in the workplace

[00:00:00] So the conceit on this video called Imposter Syndrome was that, you know, I'd do my Schwarzenegger and maybe even little King Charles and each of them would be doing HR stuff and of course, you know, missing the mark most of the time. We had, you know, Tommy Lee Jones doing the fugitive thing where we're going to do a hard target search of every outhouse, henhouse and doghouse.

[00:00:29] Your fugitive is any remote employee. So, you know, it was, it got a lot of views. People liked it. And, you know, most importantly, I was trying to provide a little bit of solace that, you know, these other stars, you know, didn't have this hard thing called. HR figured out either. So that was a lot of fun. And yeah, just adds another dimension to having a bit of fun with HR topics.

[00:00:58] Welcome to the HR Huddle Podcast presented by Sapient Insights Group, the ultimate resource for all things HR. It's time to get in the huddle. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the HR Huddle. I'm your host, Terri Zipper, CEO and managing partner at Sapient Insights Group.

[00:01:26] And I'm back for another exciting episode of HR We Have a Problem. This is the show where we like to break down the big and most relevant HR issues of the day. We help you make sense of what they mean for you. And we talk about what you might do about them. Joining me today is Peter Phelan. Peter's the founder and CEO of Values Culture. He's been a CPO at some global tech firms.

[00:01:51] He's been out there working on with organizations to build high performing cultures, working on executive search. And to round it all out, he does stand up comedy. Some of you may have seen him. With an HR background, we know you have an endless supply of material. Welcome, Peter. Such a pleasure to have you. Great to be here, Terri. You've got quite a non-traditional resume.

[00:02:18] I was really hoping we could talk about your path, how you've helped organizations achieve high levels of trust, some of the challenges you've faced and overcome along the way and how you've done that. Does that sound like a good plan to you? Sure, sure. I will give you the quick version. So I studied in Ireland.

[00:02:41] I guess the resume has some traditional qualities to it insofar as I studied management at University College Dublin in a commerce degree and then went on to do a master's in HRM. We call that HRM, which I'll get back to later with a joke reference. But proceeded to, you know, do the traditional thing in many ways. Got, well, I got a lottery green card that same year as the master's, which was amazing.

[00:03:07] So I came to the States and forged a career across multiple industries, kind of moving up through the ranks to the VP and then chief people officer job in the couple of tech companies that you were kind enough to mention. So, you know, that was the standard. Oh, yeah, you know, I recognize this pattern. Then in parallel, there was a little bit of a fondness for humor throughout. And the HRM reference I made earlier was, and we're doing our first group presentation in that master's program.

[00:03:37] And it was pretty fundamental stuff. So I opened with a statement. What is HRM? Is it hairy Russian monkeys? And this was quite confusing to our professor, who was this awesome guy, but a very straight-laced board director. He was also a senator in the Irish government. But even he got a chuckle out of the ridiculousness of this opening line in my presentation, which then became quite more serious and conventional.

[00:04:05] But yeah, the HR thing and the humor thing have coexisted in my life for decades. And I think that they go well together. And I look forward to talking about that marriage with you a bit more today. Yeah, that was interesting. One of my questions is, where did that come from? So you're kind of a, you know, my intro obviously didn't do you justice. I mean, you're kind of a superstar, maybe bordering on legend at this point.

[00:04:32] You know, you've done, you do podcasts all the time. So I'm sincerely thankful that you joined my little podcast. You know, you've done Unleash and Disrupt HR. And, you know, I saw that you've been, had some awards and top innovator, the keynote speaker. I mean, is there anything you haven't done?

[00:04:55] Well, you know, I guess I'm a generalist in, or I was a generalist as I kind of rose up through the ranks. We know that HR jobs are very wide. They're like 30 different jobs. So in that sense, I guess there's a lot I did do.

[00:05:10] But one thing that I prefer about being a consultant now and just doing more specific things is that the playbooks that I was able to deploy in-house to win, you know, lots of great places to work awards through forging really healthy internal communication feedback loops up, down across the organization.

[00:05:30] That, you know, there's a certain amount of deep expertise, maybe in my consulting practice where I do those culture strategy projects and I do executive search for chief people officers. So, you know, I guess these days I do less as opposed to watchful, is there anything I don't do? I do less in a sense, but I like to think I do it better.

[00:05:50] And one of the ways that I can kind of accelerate trust with clients and prospects is to maybe, because I go so deep in these couple of different things at this point in my career, I can convey mastery by joking about them and kind of going that kind of next level of depth. So that's been fun to kind of accelerate trust through a little bit of humor in unexpectedly effective ways. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:06:19] Short of your college career, when you kind of came up with the hairy Russian monkeys, I'm never going to forget this. You know, HR, they want to be, and they need to be for all intents and purposes, taken pretty seriously. And people generally look to them for, you know, the cultural approach, things like that. When was the first time you used it in an HR setting? Like, what did that look like?

[00:06:47] And what made you think that that would actually work? Yeah. So most of my career has been in the States here. So I, you know, saw this idea of humor and mastery kind of being coexisting in maybe an unexpected place for the audience, but it was the Simpsons. So I was kind of relatively new to the States.

[00:07:12] Of course, I'd gotten some tutelage in the ways because we had a lot of American TV and stuff over in Ireland. But still, there was lots of nuances I didn't have because I just didn't grow up here for two decades like a lot of my peers. So I loved how the Simpsons writers are so clever, where they can kind of convey the foibles of, you know, some of aspects of American life and culture with some gentle ribbing of the country and the culture.

[00:07:39] But at the same time, convey a tremendous amount of information about, you know, the history, the politics, you know, real info. So and that kind of made me think, OK, maybe I should be doing a bit of edutainment myself. So the first manifestation, that's your question, was probably like in new hire orientations when I was back in my 20s, early career, initial jobs.

[00:08:04] And so I was kind of committed to not having the glazed new hire orientation, you know, PowerPoint, death by PowerPoint experience for the newbies. So I would add jokes to kind of keep them engaged. And it was pretty effective at Bloomberg, which was a few years later into my career. I actually got to translate that humor from the internal education sessions to Bloomberg Radio. They took a chance on me, a very serious place.

[00:08:33] Now, you think HR is serious and we want to, you know, be taken seriously. Well, you know, Wall Street, even more serious. You don't shoot into Bloomberg Radio for giggles. But when the markets are closed on the weekends, they said, yeah, we got time to fill. So, Peter, if you convey some kind of how to make the most of your benefit plans at your employer to the audience in a way that's accurate, they don't want to be misleading people on their airwaves and engaging, go for it.

[00:09:01] So I did this agony uncle type format where I would write a fake letter to, you know, the finance ear was my persona. And I'm a dear financier. I'm just off the boat from Ireland and I'm very confused. There's a big sign in the bank window saying tax deductible contributions to the IRA. Like, what's going on? I proceed to explain a different kind of IRA over here. And then I talked about the advantages and stuff.

[00:09:31] So it's like you get people's attention and then you educate them. And so that's been the kind of that was the early formula. And when I still use. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, in today's environment, you know, we're seeing so many challenges. Physical and mental health is so important these days. And a lot of times we just we don't think about that. But comedy and humor. I think we all like to laugh.

[00:09:58] Even in the worst of times, we try to find things to laugh about. Right. Yeah. How do you see, because, you know, there's a lot going on with technological change. People are worried about their jobs. AI taking over the world. You know, how do you see humor sort of helping to accelerate success in conversations and in these environments? For sure.

[00:10:23] With your permission, Terry, I might quickly share a couple of visuals on this on this very topic. Yeah, absolutely. So. Finding a great career has always been a challenge. But today, with the massive changes underway in just about every sector of the economy, in just about every country in the world, finding a great new career is even more challenging.

[00:10:50] And if you're a student, recent graduate, or someone else early in their career, it's even harder for you because you just don't have the experience that those who might be 10, 20, 30 years older than you have. The answer? The podcast. From dorms to desks.

[00:11:11] A podcast by college recruiter job search site, where every week we take a deep dive into a topic specifically of interest to candidates who are early in their careers and looking for a great part-time, seasonal, internship, or other entry-level job. You know, the sort of the rationale behind deploying humor has some science behind it.

[00:11:40] And so this is the cute birds, as I say. This is some hard science from the male. They're not the angry birds. No, no. These are not the angry birds. Yeah, good call. I like your humor as well. And, you know, these are proven, you know, physiological, psychological benefits of humor. And so this is not, you know, fiction or anything.

[00:12:05] And my experience is that, you know, it's kind of our job as outdoor professionals to knowing this to, you know, where you can, and it makes sense to do so without being intrusive, you know, add some humor to the workforce and encourage it. So, you know, the hard science is there. And then, of course, this is my Bloomberg experience here. They didn't allow me to do external cartoons, but this was in an internal magazine.

[00:12:34] I did the radio stuff externally. But, you know, when maybe subject matter is daunting, like for some people, personal finance is scary. And so the idea of kind of demystifying it in a fun way with Celia Banner here, my other persona at Bloomberg, you know, poking fun at fear of stocks and bonds. You know, it's just a little bit taking the edge off, you know, can be a valuable thing.

[00:13:00] And then this applies to, you know, relationships as well. So when you're breaking the ice with people in any setting, so you think about dating sites or just, you know, parties or whatever. And when you're trying to connect with people, humor is always top of the list, like what people want in that other party that they're trying to relate to, be it a friend, a romantic relationship, why not a colleague?

[00:13:26] So in the interest of accelerating connection, which an HRBP needs to do rather quickly to get trust, to get under the hood and have, you know, the manager you're serving kind of open up to you about what their hopes and dreams might be for the department. That connection acceleration through humor has been a go-to move for me, you know, throughout my career. There's some risks.

[00:13:52] I've got a couple of other visuals later about what not to do with humor because there can be a delicate balance. But a little light humor that, you know, you're still 95% serious, but peppering in this little garnish of leatherty is pretty effective. And HR, you know, we talk to a lot of people, maybe more than any other department in an organization. So you need some hacks to make those connections. You know, each conversation accelerate that trust building and humor is a good way to do it.

[00:14:22] Yeah. I do wonder if everybody has the ability to be humorous. I think they do. And obviously the setting, right? But I remember the first time that I tried to incorporate something funny into a speech that I was doing. It failed miserably. Let's just put it that way. I mean, I don't know what I was thinking, but it was not good. I try to have humor in my conversations, especially on the podcast.

[00:14:50] It's fun to do that. But, you know, some people might be afraid that they don't, they're not funny or maybe that they need to be careful about, you know, what they're joking about, right? They don't want to create an environment where people are uncomfortable about their jokes. So I don't know. What advice do you give people in that regard?

[00:15:15] Well, on the first point about not considering themselves funny, I've been lucky enough to do a fair amount of stand-up comedy at New York City clubs and a couple of gigs beyond that. And on occasion, you'll get a small, you know, cold crowd. Sometimes it includes, you know, a bunch of other stand-ups who are in the back and you're doing your stuff and you think you're delivering it appropriately and all the rest.

[00:15:43] And all you get are these kind of stony faces, maybe some smiles, but very few actual belly laughs or chuckles, which can be tough. Maybe kind of like your first experiment in that presentation where you think it fell flat. And then afterwards, when I kind of do the rounds of the audience, maybe go back to the other comics in the back and they're like, Peter, great set. I love the bit about such and such. And or one of the audience members comes up to me who, you know, seem very stony faced during the show.

[00:16:13] And they're like, where are you performing again? You know, it's, it's, it can be quite surreal. Don't always confuse a lack of real time, you know, immediate approval with the humor not working. So that's thing, that's thing one. Of course, the cue for the humor not work, but I've had so many experiences where the humor actually did work and people were quietly enjoying it. And yeah, they're just kind of quiet about it. Yeah. That's, that's, that's interesting. Yeah. So don't, don't give, don't be discouraged.

[00:16:43] I'll go back to my visuals for some, some rules of thumb on maybe things to be careful of. Yeah. So, you know, less is more. So, you know, don't kind of have a gag in every paragraph or, you know, every slide of that new orientation deck, because, you know, then it'll be like, are you just, are you trying to educate me? Or are you just, you know, in here trying to get laughs?

[00:17:09] You know, so consider sort of the prime directive of what you're trying to do and consider, you know, humor as just a little bit of a garnish. So that's take some of the heat off. You don't have to be, you know, this laugh a minute Gaffigan or Seinfeld, just, you know, adding a garnish to otherwise serious content. And then, you know, just be careful about who you belittles in, and of course, the easiest way to do that is belittle nobody.

[00:17:36] And with a possible exception for yourself, you don't want to kind of diminish your credibility by, you know, appearing foolish or, you know, over-disclosing. But, you know, everyone learns and goes through, you know, new experiences. So maybe you're working with a first-time manager, and you can open up about some of the mistakes you made when you were a first-time manager. And some of them might be kind of funny, but it's in the past. You're not losing credibility now, and now you know better.

[00:18:04] Now you're in a role where you've been trusted with advising other first-time managers because you've learned sometimes the hard way. So, you know, you can make the fun of your past self without diminishing your current credibility. And then, you know, belittling your organization is probably not the way to go either with, you know, your paycheck, etc.

[00:18:24] However, you know, every organization does face some impossible situations, trade-offs, and, you know, speaking about those as the true challenges that they are, I think is definitely fair game. And then there are times the layoff scenario, not time to break out the stand-up comedy routine. You know, there are some situations where it's so serious, obviously, that you're not going to try and lighten the mood.

[00:18:50] But, you know, it's not so very difficult to navigate through, you know, what's going to be potentially offensive and what is safe. I would say that in the era of AI and those threats and the people's jobs and insecurity that you're referring to, then human connection, you know, can be all the more powerful.

[00:19:15] I think one way to not get replaced in a hurry is to be sort of indispensable. And typically those who are indispensable are those who formed, you know, strong connections with their stakeholders. And one of those accelerators to said strong connections can be humor. And if with your permission, I'll look at a couple of more slides to make that maybe more. Awesome. So this is a book some viewers may be familiar with.

[00:19:41] It's kind of a very seminal text from the 1990s in how to manage professional service organizations. But the same applies to an HRBP client relationship or any kind of professional connection.

[00:19:55] And the idea is to become, to go from, you know, being maybe a transactional one trick pony, you know, service provider to a trusted resource who maybe has a better knowledge of the business and the different moving parts all the way up to a trusted advisor where you get the whole picture. And you can be a resource, you know, who knows the CEOs, hopes, dreams, weaknesses they've opened up to you.

[00:20:23] And I was lucky enough to get a week worth of training on this in beautiful Basking Ridge, New Jersey about 15 years ago, thanks to one of my ad agency employers. And I actually developed a relationship with the co-author, Charlie Green. And not too long ago, I bounced this idea off him that this core trust equation could have some humor accelerators kind of just under the surface built into it.

[00:20:51] So to go over the model real quickly. So according to Charlie Green and his colleagues, trustworthiness is a function of credibility. So knowing your subject matter, reliability, showing up when you're supposed to, delivering your deliverables on time. And then intimacy, where somebody feels safe that they can disclose maybe weaknesses, fears, whatever, without them being weaponized against the client or the person who's sharing.

[00:21:19] And then, so those are all kind of accretive on the top. The one thing that kind of reduce the chances of trust building is self-orientation. So this might be, I had a scenario myself where I changed jobs and one vendor rep was very eager to speak to me on my first day in the new job about signing up and using them at this new place. And I was like, yeah, it's kind of, you know, my first day. I'm still going to show up to know the ropes here. And I don't want to.

[00:21:47] And, you know, he wanted a legal agreement signed that day to, you know, work with us. I'm like, I had never even worked with the legal team before. I can't get the screened or demand to be screened on my first day. Oh, it's really important you get done today. Anyway, I thought, cut a long story short, I found out later that there was a big sales promotion that if they booked a lot of business on that day, November 30th, he was going to stand to gain quite a bit personally.

[00:22:12] He didn't care about my maybe screwing up my relationship with the new general counsel or the legal team. He was all about himself. So that's not a good example of trustworthiness. So I got to talking to Charlie about this model and we kind of aligned. I'll speak for myself.

[00:22:30] He didn't disagree with me that the credibility one is one where humor can play a role, kind of as discussed earlier, where you've got that mastery of the topic so much so that you can do a little bit of edutainment and make it engaging and still be highly accurate. And that can, you know, definitely help. Reliability, showing up on time, maybe not as much of a potential for trust acceleration there. Intimacy, yes.

[00:22:54] Kind of like that example of sharing your own past failures to make the person comfortable discussing their weaknesses and potential solutions. So, yeah, so I think in the era of AI and any other threats, there's so many threats these days, you know, just getting closer more quickly and accelerating trust with your stakeholders through doing all these great things. You could just use the trust equation in and of itself. It's a really cool tool to think about.

[00:23:22] But if you do want for extra humor credit with the HRS humorist, think about maybe adding in that layer as well for a couple of, you know, clicks even faster trust building. Yeah. Yeah. And if you're listening to this podcast versus watching it, check out the YouTube version of it so you can see the, actually see the trust equation. I know Peter read it out there pretty well, but if you want to see it in real time, go check out the YouTube.

[00:23:47] One of the things I think it's interesting that you said you kind of got started on this comedic or humorous trail from watching The Simpsons. There's a lot that can be said for a lot of cartoonish, you know, anime, whatever you want to call. My husband watches a lot of that and he thinks he's hilarious. So they do, they do a lot of funny things and they attach them to, you know, parts of the, of organizations and people and employee life.

[00:24:15] It can be very comical. You use a lot of voices in your humor to get your point across sometimes. How did that get started? And, and what's your favorite voice? Ah, well, yeah. So I, I, I hope your husband wasn't listening to this or, cause that kind of thinks, thinks he's hilarious. He is actually pretty funny. Okay, good. I got to. Yeah. He's very funny. There you go. False alarm. False alarm.

[00:24:43] So, yeah, I probably began, I kind of got this good ear for, which does not translate to singing, by the way. And so don't, don't ask me to sing, but it, it, it does translate to maybe adapting to the States more quickly. I don't sound super duper Irish and that transition did not take 30 years. I've been here. It was quite fast. And it wasn't because I was trying to cast off my past identity.

[00:25:09] It was a subconscious thing where I just wanted to be understood and not have to repeat myself and just communicate effectively. Um, so I, I kind of had this innate ear and then I would, you know, growing up in, in, in Europe, you're exposed to lots of different accents as well from French, German, all the rest. So I, I was always kind of able to identify them and enjoyed kind of trying to pinpoint where somebody might be from.

[00:25:36] And then in the standup world, it's a bit of a differentiator, you know, to be able to do voices because a lot of people are very funny, probably funnier than me. But maybe my secret weapon could be that I can also, it can be pretty funny. And then I can also do other voices. So yeah, it was, it was pretty early on when I was doing standup, maybe even 20 years ago, I was doing lots of accent stuff.

[00:25:59] And then more recently I had that disrupt HR video where I did, I was really hard on the larynx as it turns out, 18 different personas in five minutes. Wow. HR format is exactly five minutes. So there was the, the, the conceit was, you know, because this has been a crazy few years, Terry, for the HR profession, just such a rollercoaster ride ever since Q1 2020 or in Q1 2025. And boy, have we been through the wars.

[00:26:28] So, and everyone thinks that they can do HR better than HR. Your other stakeholders, I don't know what you mean about them. I love my stakeholders, but some of them do oversimplify, you know, what the, I think HR is, they think HR is simpler than it really is. So the conceit on this video called imposter syndrome was that, you know, we, I'd do my Schwarzenegger and, you know, maybe even little King Charles and each of them would be doing HR stuff.

[00:26:58] And of course, you know, missing the mark most of the time. We had, you know, Tommy Lee Jones doing the fugitive thing where we're going to do a hard target search of every outhouse, henhouse and doghouse. Your, your fugitive is any remote employee. So, you know, it was, it got a lot of views. People liked it.

[00:27:23] And, you know, most, most importantly, I was trying to provide a little bit of solace that, you know, these other stars, you know, didn't have this hard thing called HR figured out either. So that was a lot of fun. And yeah, it just adds another dimension to having a bit of fun with HR topics. Yeah. So which one is your favorite? I, you don't have to do Chewbacca because I, that one seemed very stressful on the larynx, but. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:27:51] What's your favorite one to do? Or do you have a favorite? My favorite one. Yeah. Well, the trouble with Chewbacca is he's kind of like Groot, you know, he just says the same thing. It's a mixture of a gargle and a yawn. That's the technique I use for, for Chewbacca. But yeah, I think I do like Schwarzenegger a great deal. He maybe is someone who a lot of people can do. He's not the hardest impersonation to do.

[00:28:17] And so, you know, my, my Emperor Palpatine or Yoda is also a pretty easy one to do, but I love doing Yoda. Emperor Palpatine is not as many people can do a good Palpatine. So I do enjoy doing that one. And yeah. Yeah. Yep. Arnold is very recognizable, right? Like you just, that's one that's hard to miss. Although in the next, you know, I don't know how long that's going to last, right? It's kind of like your Sean Connery. You said people don't. Yeah.

[00:28:46] The younger generation doesn't know who that is at this point. That's right. Yeah. Because I'm, you know, born in the early seventies. And yeah, I thought I had a very good Sean. I think I do have a pretty good Connery, but the trouble is that the audience is like, he sounds vaguely familiar, but you know, please, please do more modern people. Yeah. I like the British accent, but. Yeah. Yeah. It's the non-disc, this mysterious British Scottish guy who was a major star when I was growing up, but now less so.

[00:29:14] And of course passed on, but yeah, I gotta, I gotta keep them, keep them current. Yeah. All for, yeah. For good, good, good results. Have you start, is, is AI, has that become kind of a big part of your shtick now or? Well, I, I, I do. Yes. It's, it's most of my humor is incredibly clean and I, I do, you know, sets in, I'm kind of, I'm known as a clean comedian.

[00:29:42] So very, you know, PG-13 stuff. My, my AI is maybe not quite, you know, saucy or anything, but I might be just slightly above PG-13. Uh, so, but yes, it has found its way in and definitely gets airtime on standup stages, but maybe not so much in, in the HR settings. Yeah. So what, is there anything that you, is there one routine that you enjoy more than others

[00:30:10] or, or gets better results when, when you're out there talking to people? Yeah. So I think, I, I hope I never fully lose my Irish identity or sound completely emergent. And because I think there's a reason why Arnold hasn't lost his accent fully. It's part of his brand, you know, uh, that's what we could do. Cause they've been hearing Arnie doing his thing for so many years.

[00:30:34] Um, so, you know, I think the fact that I am this Irish guy who's still 30 years in figuring out some of the quirks of, you know, life here versus back in Europe is, it tends to be pretty evergreen. And I, I kind of, I, I, but I acknowledge that I've lost some of my Irishness in a, a bit where my wife now complains that her exotic husband has, you know, lost his, his accent

[00:31:02] and she feels cheated, you know, this is not just this generic kind of American sounding guy. Um, and I'm like, well, you know, maybe she's overestimating the exoticness of, of Ireland, you know, terrible weather, fair amount of self-medication and depression. And the guy is not so much the tall, dark and handsome model, uh, but more so the sort of, you know, pale average heights, uh, basically Ed Sheeran lookalikes, not soundalikes lookalikes.

[00:31:32] Um, so, you know, I think that that incorporates a little bit of, uh, self-deprecation, which as one of the tools we talked about is being safe. And, and yeah, so this stuff, I think, yeah, there's, there's definitely lessons from the standup stage that translate to the, the, the conference room where a little bit of light, you know, self-deprecation, seeing the world in a slightly, from a slightly different angle can be fodder for, for humor.

[00:31:59] And, you know, maybe you're seeing client groups business from a slightly different angle than they might, you know, as the leader, who's maybe very invested in the awesomeness. But if you can gently, you know, reveal some potential room for improvement while, you know, giving praise where due a nice bit of appreciative inquiry from your HR BP slash, uh, humorist, and that can be a pretty effective delivery mechanism.

[00:32:26] But yeah, I think that the same, you know, the go-to moves from the standup stage, several of them can apply directly to our HR jobs. Yeah. What are, so somebody who's, you know, thinking, I really need to, you know, inject more humor into the work that I'm doing, or I want to be able to make this more relatable. What advice would you give them? Or, you know, what are some ideas that you could give them to kind of get started?

[00:32:56] Yeah. So, you know, if you're kind of like very down on your sense of humor, like you're not, I'm not, I don't know what's going to land, then you can, you know, outsource it a little bit. You know, there's like cartoon stock, or you can do, you know, searches for low or no costs cartoons, which could be peppered into your presentation, say. And there's such an amazing bank and depth of, of great cartoons out there, like New Yorker

[00:33:25] type stuff for just little one, one frame cartoons, that it's easy enough to find something funny and insightful about any topic, be it, you know, new orientation, sales, you know, even compliance, try and make that funny. It's actually possible if you have, you know, so that can be a kind of a non-scary way to start. It's just like, you know, adding in some, some, some funny things other people put together

[00:33:53] that have the same kind of visual impact as PowerPoint slides. Yeah. I like that idea. I sometimes use just a one slide comic strip in decks just to kind of make the point. But, and I think one of the things that I've noticed is, you know, think your past experiences, which may not have felt funny at the time are far more funny now and people can relate to them. Right.

[00:34:20] Like, you know, the, the process of open enrollment every year. Right. There's so many horror stories and those horror stories can become, you know, comedic to an extent. Sure. Yeah. And if you haven't. Plus time equals comedy. Another formula. Yeah. If you haven't, and if you haven't been around HR long enough to have the stick, you know, listen to other people's stories. Right.

[00:34:48] I think, you know, one of the things about being in HR is not just your own experiences. It's what you hear from the employees about what they were trying to do and how they were trying to get through it. What, you know, what all went wrong. Right. For sure. Yeah. And those become great, great stories. You hear so many stories and you can just apply the, you know, change the names to protect the, the, the innocent or the guilty case may be.

[00:35:17] But yeah, the stories themselves are out there, you know, in the public domain as soon as they've been shared with you. But yeah, you know, one, one, one kind of naive Irishman experience I had, which was kind of humbling at the time, but it is funny in retrospect. I was at a fidelity conference in Boston, you know, my first big conference in my mid twenties or whatever, super excited. And I, you know, was mingling.

[00:35:44] And this one guy said he was with company X. Cause I won't mention what company X was. And, and I asked, Oh, what do they do? And then not only does he, his jaw drop, but like every jaw within, you know, earshot dropped as well as basically like Walmart or Coca-Cola or whatever. It was like, you know, suffice it to say when interbrands does their most valuable brands analysis every year, it's always in the top 10.

[00:36:12] And, but for some reason I had not come across it. And so I sounded like quite the, the rube from, you know, the, the, the, the sticks, the holding of the, this doesn't work in sticks, but the Irish sticks. So at the, at the time I was mortified, but now I'm like, that was, you know, that's funny. So yeah. They thought you just came to, is this your first day on planet earth? Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.

[00:36:38] I mean, I do think I, I, maybe everybody's not funny, but I think everybody has the ability to inject humor into the conversation. And some of it is just thinking about the things that you've experienced and why they're funny. Right. And why other people can relate to them because they've had similar experiences. I mean, I think that's, what's so hilarious about the Simpsons or any, any of these other

[00:37:06] shows is that so many things you can relate to, even if they're not as, as wild, you can relate to the issue. Yeah. You've been there. They'll have, you know, for the TV audience, but there's a slightly smaller version of that issue, which you probably like yourself. Yeah. Yeah. And that's more, you know, sharing those stories is more connection and trust building and edutainment, you know, like maybe after hearing that story, people will ask a different

[00:37:36] question about that mysterious brand versus what do they do? You know, it's like, oh, where are you based out of? And then they Google on the side. Okay. What does this company do versus, you know, getting burned the way I was, but yeah, there's sharing the stories. It can be fun to share. It can be fun to hear, but there's also the learning and the edutainment and the connection building. I think it's a pretty virtuous cycle. Yeah. So if you're, if you're looking for ways to, to do this one, check out the trust equation,

[00:38:05] check out Peter and I'll get his, his website in a minute, but, you know, also just think about some of your own stories and, you know, look at some, follow some cartoons or, you know, like you said, some, some things that you can read about in, you know, in any cartoon strip. Yeah. There's lots of good ones out there from a, from a business perspective that you can subscribe to and check out. So.

[00:38:34] You know, funny, it's funny because it's true. Yeah. There's so many goods, you know, Dilberts and, you know, the office, the TV show is so good. Yeah. And, you know, talks about real things in their own sort of extreme, nutty Michael Scott way. And there's, you know, some just great comedians as well. Like, just like liking a comedian can be a way of connecting through humor, even if it's just appreciating somebody else's work, like the craft of Seinfeld episodes, the way everything kind of comes together.

[00:39:02] How funny Jim Gaffigan is all the time. And occasionally people liken me to Jim Gaffigan, not for my humor, but for my appearance. Hopefully I'll get there on the humor front one day. But yeah, there's a lot to like out there and, you know, to maybe bring a bit of levity into trying times. Yeah. Yeah. Create, create your own brand. I mean, you don't have to be Jerry Seinfeld, like, right. You don't have to, everything doesn't have to be a belly laugh, but create your own brand around it.

[00:39:32] Well, thank you, Peter. Thanks for joining me today. Pleasure. This is great. Where can people find more information about you and where you'll be and where they can learn a little bit more on this topic? Oh, well, thank you so much. So my website is valuesculture.com, which is mostly serious because I love to do those culture strategy projects. And I've placed like 125 plus HR leaders, talent, people, talent, all things people.

[00:40:00] So the executive search practices is a lot of fun. And they can read about both of those things there. Find me on LinkedIn as well. I would love to connect with folks. Peter Phelan. There's several of us. I'm the one who calls himself the culture doctor. And in terms of performing, I'm going to be at Transform in Vegas on St. Patrick's Day, March 17th through the 19th. That's a three-day conference. Should be a lot of fun. Hopefully there'll be like 4,000 people pros there. And I'm slated to do some HR comedy.

[00:40:29] And yeah, I'm also sometimes in the New York City stand-up clubs, but that can be a little bit less schedule, predictable. But I look forward to talking humor with some of the folks who maybe listen to this and want to go deeper. That's awesome. Well, I want to thank our producers, Brand Method Media Group and Kelly Kelly, our marketing team, Cindy and Summer, who worked so hard to get this out to you. And thank you for tuning in.

[00:40:57] Also, don't forget to join Stacey and Cliff next week while they spill the tea on HR tech. That's always a great show. That's all the time we have for this episode of HR. We have a problem. If you enjoyed the episode, you can subscribe to it on your favorite podcast app. Leave us a review if you have a minute. Drop us a line. Let us know what you want to hear about. We'd love to know what you want to hear about so we can get the right topics on this show.

[00:41:23] We will be back in two weeks with another episode of HR, We Have a Problem. Thanks, everybody. Bye. Bye. Bye.