Healthy, successful executives; leaders at all levels; and productive teams in the workplace all have one thing in common: They laugh, joke and have fun together. That’s the contention of self-dubbed "corporate comic" Bob Ross, the author of Laugh, Lead & Profit: Building Productive Workplaces with Humor and That’s a Good One! Corporate Leadership with Humor. Ross believes humor enhances performance of all kinds — building productivity and profit into an organization.

In his best-selling Reinventing the Corporation, author John Naisbitt outlines the evolution of the workplace from its origins when it flourished through money and machines to today’s businesses that find their chief assets are information, knowledge and creativity. With the shift on emphasis from financial resources to human resources there is an ever-increasing need for humor in the workplace, Ross believes.

To decrease workers’ job burnout and dropout while increasing productivity and profits, businesses today must create an environment which supports thinking that is innovative and often seemingly unconventional. Doing so can provide organizations with an "extra edge" to meet challenges in today’s hyper-competitive world. Ross cites Naisbitt’s point that more than half of all income in this country now comes from services instead of manufactured goods. In a service economy, astute companies must place more emphasis on their people.

"We are becoming more and more a society of creativity and communication," Ross says. "Humor helps to energize the work force, stimulating their creativity and putting things into proper perspective."

Companies that have emphasized a more playful approach to work, often through teams of creative and enterprising people, have developed highly successful and innovative products. Others have been equally successful in developing cost-saving systems and procedures as well. But a good-humored, creative environment is as important to factories as these groups, Ross says. Humor may take a different form in varying workplaces; it is crucial in setting the stage for business success.

Ross believes that everyone operates in two modes: open and closed. In the closed mode, we are guarded and conservative, we dislike change and we’re unreceptive to new ideas. This was the primary mode of business in the industrial era, when companies were essentially buying workers’ assembly-line motions. Fun in assembly-line, mass-production jobs was difficult and seemed to detract from the workplace. Employee participation was discouraged, and management operated in closed mode.

In open mode, workers lighten up, share opinions, and are more open to spontaneity and new ideas. In this mode, the workplace becomes truly creative. The best ideas for improvement and product creation often happen during this mode. The open mode makes for a s sense of camaraderie and shared vision. People are also easiest to motivate when they are in the open mode.

"Humor activates the open mode," Ross says. "When you have humor, you have trust."

The open mode is not always appropriate, Ross cautions. During a crisis, a responsible leader may determine it inappropriate to call for participative decision making. But if participation and creativity are wanted, everyone involved must be in an open mode.

Ross compares the need for different modes to playing on a football team. During the game, when the team is in the huddle, the quarterback can accept others’ ideas and suggestions. But once the play is called, the others must follow the plan without hesitation in order to be successful.

Humor is a "multipurpose marvel," Ross says. Its uses include:

• Building teams and boosting morale

• Relieving tension
• Making meetings more productive
• Giving perspective and solving problems
• Heightening creativity
• Making unavoidable circumstances tolerable
• Defusing criticism and hostility
• Selling ideas and products
• Strengthening communications

Ross notes John F. Kennedy among his favorite examples of leaders who used humor effectively. Before a meeting in the oval office, members of the Kennedy’s staff would recite a positive affirmation the president had given them: "I’m healthy, I’m happy, I’m here for fun!" Ross has adapted this phrase for the back of his business cards. Before the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy asked that someone tell a joke. While it was a serious occasion, Ross says, Kennedy knew that getting everyone quickly into an open mode to problem solve was vital.

Humor varies from group to group and from situation to situation. Women, for example, have only recently been introduced to open laughing. Less than 100 years ago, Ross says, women laughed only behind their hands.

Companies can begin to create more humor in the workplace by examining current policies and asking if they are stretching or restricting employees. Policies that are profitable and productive should be retained, but they will be strengthened by the addition of fun, humor and enjoyment.

Humor has to begin at the top, Ross says, with the leaders within the organization agreeing as to how to make work enjoyable. Once this is started, a system to keep the idea of humor alive is even more important than getting it started. Permission to have fun, and the practice of having fun, will provide impetus, but fresh ideas to maintain a positive workplace will keep it going.

"Tom Peters says that all excellence is the result of a spirited environment, one marked with laughter," Ross says. "Humor is one of the keys to creating excellence."