If your leadership team can laugh until you cry, you’re going to get better results.
Not because laughter is some magical productivity hack, but because teams that can find humor together can also survive hard things together and still perform.
I was on an HR team that moved fast and absorbed a lot of organizational chaos. When a new executive joined who was… let’s say difficult… things got tense.
After one particularly rough meeting where he’d been especially hard on us, we gathered in a colleague’s office. Silent. Shell-shocked.
Our leader looked at us and said, “What the f*ck just happened in there?”
That one question let us exhale.
Then someone started reenacting the meeting with fabulous hyperbole. Then someone else joined in. Within minutes we were laughing so hard we were crying.
We walked in silent. Thirty minutes later, we walked out knowing we still had a real problem to solve—but the tension had dissipated enough that we could actually think clearly about it.
This is what effective teams do. They find the absurdity together. They create space to be human before diving back into being professional.
But this doesn’t happen by accident. You have to make the time to build trust, relationships, and connection. That’s what creates the safety to laugh together when things get hard.
Work is serious. Results are serious. Leadership is serious.
But if you can’t find the levity, you won’t last.
Looking to increase the cohesion, trust, and impact of your leadership team? Reach out and let’s discuss The Compass Team Experience and how I can help.
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