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<h1>Building Relationships with Humor</h1>

As a leader, when you are building social and business
relationships, humor is a wonderful tool. In both situations,
people want to associate with leaders who have a positive
personality and a sense of humor. When you are skilled at using
humor, it increases trust and likeability. It builds, and sometimes
even rescues, relationships. It clearly strengthens your leadership
skills. A significant fringe benefit, it sharpens your ability to
use humor in your presentations because you have a better-tuned
humor radar.
Here's an example where I used the humorous touch when sending a
letter to a fellow professional speaker. It illustrates keeping
your humor radar tuned for fun opportunities. I enjoyed hearing
Mary-Ellen Drummond, a terrific speaker, give a presentation in Los
Angeles. In her talk she mentioned that when she receives a great
testimonial letter, she laminates it. When I returned home I wrote
her a nice letter and mailed it to her. When she received the
envelope and opened it, she discovered that my letter was already
laminated!
Years later, I discovered that she was sharing my pre-laminated
letter with an audience. When you create humor and share it, you
never know how many people it will touch and to what extent it will
build a relationship.
Humor is also a terrific way to recover from a mistake. Less
effective ways of dealing with a mistake are: Ignoring it.
Explaining it. Becoming defensive. Often, those choices can be
awkward. Many times, when recognizing a mistake, laughter is
clearly the best choice. Let me give you some examples.
I received an email inquiry for a speaking engagement on the
East coast. At the end of my response to the request for
information, I added: "I look forward to adding a special touch to
your meeting in Deleware!"
The meeting planner replied to my email with two simple words:
"It's DelAware."
I had misspelled the name of her state! I had replaced an A with
an E.
My note back to her: "Thenks. Lern something every dey."
Her response (the capital letters are hers): "YOU PASS THE TEST!
We needed someone with a TRUE sense of humor. Now I'm really
excited. I'll be in touch!"
Another example, again in communicating with a potential client,
I misspelled a word. This time it was a potential client's first
name. Instead of Cecelia I had written to her as Cecilia. Knowing
that misspelling someone's name is a tacky mistake, I quickly
acknowledged the error before she had a chance to reply. I
immediately sent her a second email:
"Oops, misspelled your name Cecelia. Sorry about that. Jhon"
My way of acknowledging that I had unintentionally misspelled
her name was to intentionally misspell mine.
Her response was positive: "Funny -- you are going to be great
for us!"
And here's another embarrassing mistake and a humor recovery. As
a newly elected board member of an association, I received an email
from the President. "By the way John, did you know you keep calling
me Rob when it's Rod?"
Well, as you probably know by now, my style is not to respond
with a simple "I'm sorry." Since he had also asked three questions
which required my response, I sent him the answers in three
separate emails. The last one ended with: "PS: I sent you separate
emails so I could practice your name."
His response: "Thank you Jon, for practicing my name." He
intentionally misspelled my name! I assumed he did it intentionally
because I know that he has a fun sense of humor.
One humorous reply deserves another. A few minutes later I sent
him a limerick:
There once was a man named Rod. For President he got the nod. He
did a great job, but some called him Rob. Which struck him as kinda
odd.
Rod's response: "Ho ho ho. Very clever. Funny too."
That entire humor exchange helped program Rod&#8217;s name into
my brain. And since that time, I've used his name correctly.
And then there was the time I broadcasted a mistaken email to
people in over 60 countries. I was helping a friend publish her
first Ezine (electronic newsletter) issue. It appeared that it
would be best to do the coaching over the phone. We were both
signed onto the internet, and I walked her through the steps on my
Ezine server's control panel while she took parallel steps on her
control panel. Somehow I made the mistake of loading a blank Ezine
into my server and sent it to over 1000 of my subscribers. Oh no! I
knew of someone who sent out an Ezine with a glaring error and
received over 200 subscription cancellations. I wanted to respond
before my subscribers reacted. Humor to the rescue!
In less than an hour after I discovered the mistake, I sent out
a special Ezine issue which read:
"What do you do when you receive a blank Ezine?
a. Be happy because you can read it quickly.
 b. Believe it is a do-it-yourself Ezine...and write your own.
 c. Cancel your subscription.
 d. Keep your sense of humor.
&#8220;It seems that a random blank issue from the Humor Power
Tips computer-in-the-sky was sent to many of our subscribers. If
you were half as surprised as I was...then I was twice as surprised
as you. Thanks for smiling with me."
And then I introduced a Blank Book Title Contest challenging
people to write titles to imaginary blank books.
The response was very positive. The subscription cancellations
were no more than they usually were, much less than one percent of
my subscription base. Among the several positive comments about how
I handled the mistake was one from Mick Court, Melbourne,
Australia: "What a great follow up to your blank Ezine. I found
your lived example of responding to a technical mistake a really
powerful lesson -- how to use humor to recover ground after a
technical mistake!"
As a bonus, I received more than 350 submissions for the Blank
Book Title Contest. Here are ten of my favorites:
The greatest story never told
It's Easy To Love Your Enemies, By George Bush and Michael
Moore
What I Learned In My Lifetime All By Myself
How Logic Applies To the Understanding of Human Behavior
Much Ado About Nothing
The Sequel To The Last Word
Gifts Greater Than Life
2021 Social Security Benefits
Tricks to Teach Your Cat
Best Short Stories Written In Invisible Ink
It's important to note that none of the fun and creativity of
this group writing exercise would have happened without my choice
of fixing a mistake with humor.
Be alert for opportunities to use humor when dealing with
mistakes or simply to put a memorable touch in your communications
with others. You'll make a lasting impression as someone who can
see the lighter side of life. It will make you a stronger leader, a
better speaker and it's good for business!

<div>Author Info 
Copyright 2005 by John Kinde. John Kinde is a humor specialist
who has been in the training and speaking business for over 30
years specializing in teambuilding, customer service and stress
management. Special reports available: Show Me The Funny -- Tips
for Adding Humor to Your Presentations and When They Don't Laugh --
What To Do When the Laughter Doesn&#8217;t Come. Humor Power Tips
newsletter and articles are available at 
<a target="_new" href="http://www.HumorPower.com">http://www.HumorPower.com</a>.
</div>

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