How laughter helps improve work performance

Can laughter be a shortcut to creating stronger and more creative work teams?

Many people think that laughing at the office can give the impression that they are lacking in service. Discussions that, until recently, took place face-to-face, at a colleague's office, are happening more and more often through emails or IM programs.

In this context, the cat can often seem useless.

But what if laughing with colleagues instead of idleness is something that encourages team collaboration and boosts innovation?

After years without paying much attention to laughter, scientists are beginning to come to this conclusion.

Fun Science

For starters, what is laughter?

Over the past two decades, numerous studies on the subject have been conducted by neuroscientist Robert Provine, a professor of psychology at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, United States.

"Laughter is a human social sign par excellence, laughing is telling," says a pbadage from the book Laughter: a scientific inquiry ("Laughter: A Scientific Research", in free translation), of his paternity.

Provine has found that we are 30 times more likely to laugh when we are with other people than when we are alone.

"We tend to ignore the fact that the evolution of laughter is due to its effect on others, not something to improve our mood or our health," he says.

Research has shown that at the workplace, laughter is triggered primarily by trivial conversations from comments such as "Repair," "I think I've finished" or "Do's, it's right here".

Who does not remember situations at work when a simple conversation ended up laughing? These are not jokes, but moments of connection with colleagues.

Laughter is a subconscious signal that we are in a state of relaxation and security, says Professor Sophie Scott of University College London (UCL) in the UK. For example, many mammals show reactions similar to laughter, but may be disturbed because of certain emotional states.

"The mice stop laughing when they feel anxious," she says. "Humans do the same thing – if people laugh, it's a sign that they're not in a state of anxiety, it's an indicator that the group is doing well . "

In other words, if the members of a team laugh together, it means that they have dropped their guard.

This is important because there is research indicating that when our brain is relaxed, we can freely badociate ideas more easily, which can stimulate creativity.

Inspirational Flashes

Scientists John Kounios of the University of Drexel in Pennsylvania and Mark Beeman of Northwestern University in Illinois conducted an experiment to see if laughter was helping a group to solve complicated logic tests.

Initially, the researchers exposed comedy scenes from actor Robin Williams. They then presented the questions. The goal was to badyze whether laughter would facilitate the emergence of ideas in the upper anterior temporal gyrus of the participants – part of the brain located above the right ear, badociated with the connection of distant ideas.

The study showed that a short laugh increased the test resolution rate by 20%. But why? According to Kounios and Beeman, probably the apparent lack of concentration badociated with laughter allows the mind to manipulate and relate concepts in a way that strict concentration would not allow.

Maybe laughter helps us eliminate stress at work. Teresa Amabile, a professor at Harvard, USA, has spent 40 years trying to understand when we are more creative.

His reflections, among the most cited in the field of occupational psychology, reveal that a positive work environment is more creative than stressful. Stress is the enemy of innovation.

"When creativity is threatened with death, it usually ends up being murdered," says Amabile in one of her best-known studies.

Predisposition to laughter

Laughter has several functions. This makes us feel more connected as a team and, as a result, reduces our creative block, leading to a greater generation of ideas.

And how can we take advantage of these benefits?

Provine suggests adopting a posture of "predisposition to laughter," which simply means being more open to chuckling.

"You can voluntarily choose to laugh more by lowering your threshold for fun, be ready and ready to laugh," he says.

He also recommends that companies organize more social events – business meetings designed solely to bring employees together instead of displaying 30 PowerPoint slides.

For Alex 'Sandy & # 39; Pentland, a professor at the Mbadachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), modern offices owe much of their productivity to older forms of interaction.

"Email has very little to do with productivity or creativity," Pentland said during a speech at Google Headquarters in 2014.

The same can not be said of face-to-face discussions, for example.

"Conversations correspond to 30%, and sometimes 40%, productivity in workgroups," says the expert.

The idea of ​​prioritizing debate and laughter within a team may seem superfluous and insignificant for some. But remember, science is on your side. And maybe the next time you laugh, the inspiration comes.

* Bruce Daisley is European Vice President of Twitter. He directs the "Eat Sleep Work Repeat," a weekly podcast on how to improve the work culture.

Read it original version of this report (in English) on the site BBC Capital.