I’m sure you’ve been in a creativity workshop or brainstorming exercise that wasn’t going well and whispered a joke answer to the topic to a friend.
Then it dawned on you what the solution was. Instant hero. Why did that happen?
Simple. Parody and humor put our brain in a highly creative state. Many companies, like IDEO, GM, and Element5 find humor leads to great solutions.
There’s a lot of research to back this up.
EEG topographical brain mapping shows the entire brain works in harmony to appreciate a joke—and for something to be funny to us. Initially, the left hemisphere begins to process words, then the frontal lobe (the center of emotions) starts up.
Precisely 120 milliseconds later, the right hemisphere begins processing the pattern, a few milliseconds later the occipital lobe increases its activity. Delta waves increase as the brain comprehends the joke, and the nucleus accumbens elicits happiness felt as a reward, and finally… we laugh.
OK, but how do we use humor for ideation?
Easy! Here’s our favorite method, In fact, we hosted a ThinkWell session yesterday and solved the problem with the very method I am about to share.
Worst Idea = Best Idea
PARTICIPANTS: 2–50
TIME: 2 Hours
TOOLS: Whiteboard or large Post-Its
Start out your session with this warmup exercise. Have everyone in the room shout out the worst possible solutions to the challenge.
For example, let’s say your session topic was “How can we get more customers in our store?” If your team is yelling out the worst possible solutions, you might expect to hear things like, “Keep the sign permanently on CLOSED,” or “Instead of telling customers to have a nice day, tell them to f*** off,” or “Employee Uniform: Naked.”
You get the idea. The weirder, the better.
Have someone write all of these up on a whiteboard or one of those giant Post-Its as they are yelled out. Have this madness continue for 5–10 minutes, depending on how funny your group is.
Now, go through each bad idea, and say the opposite of it. Because the opposite of a really bad idea, is a really good one.
References:
Baer, Drake. Why Humor Makes You More Creative. Fast Company, May 9, 2013. https://www.fastcompany.com/3009489/why-humor-makes-you-more-creative
Boston, Michelle. How Being Funny Changes Your Brain. USC News, February 24, 2017. https://news.usc.edu/116675/studying-creativity-and-the-brain-is-no-joke/
Holmes, Janet. Making Humor Work: Creativity on the Job. Applied Linguistics, Volume 28, Issue 4, 1 December 2007, Pages 518–537, https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amm048
Ma, Moses. The Power of Humor in Ideation and Creativity. Psychology Today, June 17, 2014. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-tao-innovation/201406/the-power-humor-in-ideation-and-creativity
Reynolds, Jeanne. It’s a Laughing Matter: Workplace Humor Inspires Creativity. WorkWell, June 30, 2016. http://workwell.unum.com/2016/03/no-laughing-matter-humor-sparks-creativity/
