Humour equals creativity by Kenny Harris
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Kenny Harris, founder of Headsurfing, compares humour and creativity.
In my experience, when people are working together on coming up with ideas, there tends to be a lot of laughter around.
And conversely, when people are laughing and enjoying themselves, the ideas tend to flow.
To my mind, humour is almost identical to creativity.
Creativity – the generation of innovative and useful ideas – follows a pattern. There’s a problem (or a challenge, or an opportunity, call it what you will). That’s the creative brief. Then comes the solution – the big idea. And for the idea to be useful it has to be new, innovative – it has to be an unexpected resolution of the problem.
Humour, in the form of jokes, is very similar. There’s a set-up (three men walk into a pub…), and then a punch line. The punchline is an unexpected resolution of the set up. It has to be something we don’t expect, but which makes some sort of sense.
If the solution to our creative challenge is obvious, or one that immediately makes sense, it’s like a punchline you’ve heard before. It’s boring, unimaginative, the same old same old.
A new idea – like an unexpected punchline – surprises us. It’s new – but it makes sense when checked against the problem or brief. Someone once described it as “logical, but only in hindsight”.
And having a laugh helps us have ideas. The centres of the pre-frontal parts of the brain which process humour, and those where we come up with ideas, are so close to each other that one helps the other.
Bring humour into your ideas sessions, by sharing your favourite limericks, putting up cartoons, swapping jokes, or turning the problem into a song or a playlet.
Next time you need a creative solution to a problem, try a cognitive juxtaposition of mental sets in order to create an affective reward feeling of amusement.
In other words, have a laugh.
Described as an “inspirational and hilarious” speaker and presenter, Kenny Harris helps teams and individuals think more creatively and productively using his own programme of tools and techniques, HeadSurfing. He also runs workshops and training sessions in creativity, innovation and presenting with passion. Kenny is a Fellow of both The Marketing Society and The Professional Speakers Association. He can be contacted at kennyharris@headsurfing.com
Posted: November 15th, 2011 | Author: stuart.treasure | Filed under: Market Leader, Uncategorized, leadership | Tags: Creativity, headsurfing, humour, jokes, kenny harris, Makes You Think, the marketing society | Leave a Comment »
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