For all ( or a lot of) my Malayalee brethren, who prefer to call it humour sense, and not sense of humour, my apologies.
Humour is the only soft power that can punch above its weight.
It has toppled tyrants, sold soap, survived WhatsApp uncles, rescued awkward silences, and made hard truths slip past our ego’s security scanner wearing an outdated wig. Yet, in boardrooms, brand decks and “serious conversations,” humour is still treated like that naughty cousin you acknowledge only at weddings.
Big mistake. Because humour is not a garnish. It is the cutlery.
Why Your Funny Bone is Your Secret Superpower
Winston Churchill, three sheets to the wind, stares down Lady Astor’s barb—“Winston, if you were my husband, I’d poison your whiskey!”—and fires back: “Nancy, if I were your husband, I’d drink it.” Boom. Room erupts. Nazis quake. History pivots on a punchline. Jaw dropped yet? Good. Because humour isn’t just LOLs—it’s the cheat code for conquering chaos. But how? Stick around; we’re trying to decode it.
Science Validated Punchline
Neuroscientists at Stanford discovered that when humour clicks, your brain lights up like a pinball machine on steroids—activating reward centers, memory hubs, and problem-solving regions simultaneously. Translation? A good laugh doesn’t just feel good. It makes you smarter.
Victor Borge called humour “the shortest distance between two people.” I’d add: it’s also the fastest route between confusion and clarity.
Circle back in time—when Volkswagen wanted Germans to buckle up in the 1970s, stern safety campaigns flopped. Then they installed a piano keyboard on stairs next to an escalator. People chose stairs. Behaviour changed through play, not preaching. The insight? Humour doesn’t just communicate—it converts.
It Takes Two To Tango- Wit and Wisdom
Our favourite comedians aren’t just funny—they’re philosophers in disguise. George Carlin dismantled language. Ricky Gervais weaponized awkwardness. Closer home, Vir Das turns cultural contradictions into mirror moments.
What’s their secret sauce? They make the familiar strange and the strange familiar. That cognitive whiplash—that sudden shift in perspective—is where both laughter and learning live.
Think about it: Every great innovation is essentially a punchline to a problem nobody saw coming. The Post-it Note? A failed adhesive that became a billion-dollar “oops.” Airbnb? “What if we made sleeping in strangers’ homes…aspirational?” The setup is absurd. The punchline is genius.
The Irreverent Edge
Here’s where humour becomes strategic dynamite: It punctures pomposity. It cuts through corporate-speak faster than any slide deck. When Elon Musk launched a Tesla into space playing “Space Oddity,” he didn’t just market a car—he made science cool through sheer audacity and wit.
Or consider Amul’s ads—decades of turning news into butter-smooth satire. They’ve mastered the art of being topical without being preachy, cheeky without being cheap. That’s high-wire humour with a safety net made of insight.
But here’s the double-edged sword: Humour without wisdom is just noise. Wisdom without humour is just tedious. The sweet spot? When your joke lands and leaves a mark.
Humour isn’t the opposite of serious. It’s the lubricant of serious.
Worth Taking Note
Humour isn’t decoration; it’s disruption. It fires up the anterior cingulate cortex—the brain’s “detective” for incongruity—and floods the system with dopamine, the “Remember this!” chemical. A joke is a Trojan horse for wisdom. You let down the drawbridge for a laugh, and in marches a memory, an idea, a connection that sets up camp permanently. Fun, isn’t it?
The Art of the Strategic Giggle
Take IKEA. They sell self-assembly frustration in a flat pack. Their genius? Naming a bookshelf “BILLY” and a towel rack “TISKEN.” They weaponise Swedish humility and our shared pain, creating a global inside joke. You’re not just a customer; you’re a co-conspirator in the absurdity of modern life. That’s branding with a wink.
Or venture into the hallowed, humourless halls of Central Banking. Enter Mahmoud Mohieldin, former IMF bigwig and UN Special Advocate. In a room choking on jargon, he reframes complex SDG financing as “trying to fit an elephant into a Smart car… and then convincing the elephant it’s a spa day.” Boom. The abstract becomes visceral, memorable, human. He doesn’t dumb it down; he frames it up. That’s the weight of wisdom, delivered with the levity of a feather that somehow tips the scale.
This isn’t about being a clown. It’s about being a conductor. The humour is the melody that makes the heavy bassline of your message travel further.
In the close tango of life, where gravity constantly leads, humour is the perfect, spontaneous dip. It’s the flash of insight that makes the whole dance memorable.
What If You Were Told Gandhi Weaponised Humour?
Look at his quote ” I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.” Nah, he’d quip to Brits: “There are only two days in the year you have no control over: yesterday and tomorrow.” Talk about mic drop from a loincloth.
An offbeat example if I may— Meet Ignaz Semmelweis, 1840s Hungarian doc who slashed childbirth deaths by mandating handwashing. Colleagues laughed him out of Vienna, called him a nut. He died in an asylum, raving. Fast-forward: Germ theory vindicates him. Moral? Humour could’ve saved him—imagine skewering snobs with: “Pus under nails? Darling, that’s not fashion; it’s a fatality waiting to happen.” Intrigue: Hospitals now train docs in comedy to boost empathy and compliance. Your scalpel? Wit.
Mark Twain said, “Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.” I’d argue it’s also our sneakiest teacher.
Three’s Company and Good To Takeaway
Start with self-deprecation. Nobody trusts perfect. When Howard Schultz admitted Starbucks initially served terrible coffee, he didn’t lose credibility—he gained humanity. As Groucho Marx said, “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member.” Self-awareness is comedy. Comedy is connection.
Use the “callback” technique. Comedians circle back to earlier jokes. In presentations, referencing your opening hook at the close creates satisfying symmetry. Memory loves patterns wrapped in laughter. It’s the mental equivalent of: “Wait, didn’t he mention that CEO and the window earlier? Oh, I see what he did there…”
Find the “Benign Violation.” Psychologist Peter McGraw‘s theory: Humour happens when something is simultaneously wrong yet okay. That’s why we laugh at slipping on banana peels but not broken bones. Navigate this space, and you’ve found comedic—and creative—gold.
The Last Laugh
Steve Martin once said, “Comedy is not pretty.” He’s right. It’s messy, risky, and often born from pain disguised as play.
But here’s something worth worth embracing: The people who understand the gravity of things are often the ones who use levity most effectively. Churchill led Britain through hell with wit as his weapon. “I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.” Savage? Yes. Memorable? Forever.
Life’s absurd enough without us taking ourselves too seriously. Charlie Chaplin knew that when he said: “A day without laughter is a day wasted.”
We can argue a strategy without humour is similarly squandered.
The brands, leaders and cultures that will endure are not the loudest or the cleverest. They will be the ones brave enough to smile at themselves, sharp enough to smile at the world, and wise enough to know when silence needs a punchline.
In an age drowning in opinions, humour still cuts through because it respects the audience’s mind while disarming their defences.
So go ahead—make ’em laugh. But more importantly, make ’em think while they’re laughing.
Because in the end, the best ideas don’t just change minds. They tickle them first.
And isn’t that a better way to start a revolution?