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Humor and the deadly earnest business major
Humor and the Deadly Earnest Business Major Sanford S. Pinsker
40 Sanford S. Pinsker is an associate professor of English at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who also teaches writing to business executives.
A good sense of humor makes for good business. I
was not surprised to read that Richard J. Cronin, head of an executive search firm in Rosemont, Illinois, has accumulated some sobering statistics about the growing number of sober-minded young executives (under 35) who sport MBA degrees b u t no discernible sense of humor. When 480 chief executives were asked the question: "Have you found that younger executives have a greater or lesser sense of humor than others?" the bulk of them checked the b o x marked "lesser." Mr. Cronin doesn't go on to speculate a b o u t h o w and w h y this humorless p h e n o m e n o n occurs, b u t I think I know. Humor, especially of the gently ironic sort, seems more appropriate to those majoring in English or philosophy or other waystations of the liberal arts than it does to those ambitious, anxious souls majoring in business. They are convinced that one c l i m b s t h e corporate ladder with pinched cheeks. Nothing could be further from the t r u t h - a n d I say this not as an English professor, b u t as s o m e b o d y who makes regular forays behind " e n e m y lines" to teach workshops in effective business writing. A good sense of humor makes for good business. Senior executives
know this, b u t alas, many executive trainees do not. Unfortunately, a healthy perspective about the World and the Self (which, of course, is what " h u m o r " is) can't be picked up in a one-semester course-although, no doubt, that is what some MBA programs will try to do. When enough companies complain about something, the business schools respond b y adding courses in computerized inventory forecasting, in behavior m o d i f i c a t i o n - e v e n in "unthinkable" subjects like humor. Which means that those of us who teach undergraduates about American humor may find ourselves chuckling over versions of the same material with graduate students in Business Administration. I've learned to take all this with good cheer. Let me hasten to add, though, that I'm not talking about jokes, about those knee-slappers Willie Loman imagined would grease his w a y into the offices of Big Buyers. Rather, the humor I have in mind involves a more complicated, much subtler appreciation of that gap-sometimes absurd, sometimes merely i n c o n g r u o u s - b e t w e e n what ought to be and what is. In a word, I'm talking about balance. Those Business Horizons /January-February 1982
41
who would subdivide Experience more productive, and it goes far in into the serious and the comic, the making the c o m p a n y more compasfrivolous and the earnest, plunge sionate. Only the deadly earnest through life with blinders fastened write sentences that begin "It is our firmly to their heads. Extraneous understanding that the reports are matter like imagination or j o y or to be delivered to the client in playfulness is ruled out in advance. J u n e " when they mean "We'll send y o u the reports in J u n e . " The bad " ~ k ' T o wonder senior executives instincts of the former usually shake their heads and won- harden into a faceless habit; the der where the business latter are likely to keep, and atschools have failed. A prig is no fun tract, more clients. at lunch, b u t he or she is even more To be sure, one humanities depressing at the junior executive's course does not necessarily make a desk. Doing business is a human person humane, any more than one activity, and a sense of humor is an course in humor will give s o m e b o d y essential ingredient of our human- a lifelong, healthy perspective, or ity. The unrelievedly serious face one swallow is synonymous with quickly becomes a corporate liabil- summer. But as m y mother used to ity. insist: "It can't hurt!" H u m o r has Put another way: humor is cost always been one of our best naeffective. It helps a c o m p a n y be
iN
tional resources. Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain, Will Rogers, James Thurber, and Woody Allen can trade quips, and stand comparison, with the best humorists produced anywhere. In fact, I'd like to believe that our country's productivity, its prosperity, its very progress as a nation, is related directly to our sense of humor, our easy adaptability, as a people. And I think the senior executives Mr. Cronin polled might agree. H u m o r is very practical, enormously powerful, stuff. I say this realizing full well that m y back row may b e c o m e filled with three-piece pinstriped suits, frantically taking notes. Luckily, I've got a good sense of humor. They're more than welcome. [55]
40 Sanford S. Pinsker is an associate professor of English at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who also teaches writing to business executives.
A good sense of humor makes for good business. I
was not surprised to read that Richard J. Cronin, head of an executive search firm in Rosemont, Illinois, has accumulated some sobering statistics about the growing number of sober-minded young executives (under 35) who sport MBA degrees b u t no discernible sense of humor. When 480 chief executives were asked the question: "Have you found that younger executives have a greater or lesser sense of humor than others?" the bulk of them checked the b o x marked "lesser." Mr. Cronin doesn't go on to speculate a b o u t h o w and w h y this humorless p h e n o m e n o n occurs, b u t I think I know. Humor, especially of the gently ironic sort, seems more appropriate to those majoring in English or philosophy or other waystations of the liberal arts than it does to those ambitious, anxious souls majoring in business. They are convinced that one c l i m b s t h e corporate ladder with pinched cheeks. Nothing could be further from the t r u t h - a n d I say this not as an English professor, b u t as s o m e b o d y who makes regular forays behind " e n e m y lines" to teach workshops in effective business writing. A good sense of humor makes for good business. Senior executives
know this, b u t alas, many executive trainees do not. Unfortunately, a healthy perspective about the World and the Self (which, of course, is what " h u m o r " is) can't be picked up in a one-semester course-although, no doubt, that is what some MBA programs will try to do. When enough companies complain about something, the business schools respond b y adding courses in computerized inventory forecasting, in behavior m o d i f i c a t i o n - e v e n in "unthinkable" subjects like humor. Which means that those of us who teach undergraduates about American humor may find ourselves chuckling over versions of the same material with graduate students in Business Administration. I've learned to take all this with good cheer. Let me hasten to add, though, that I'm not talking about jokes, about those knee-slappers Willie Loman imagined would grease his w a y into the offices of Big Buyers. Rather, the humor I have in mind involves a more complicated, much subtler appreciation of that gap-sometimes absurd, sometimes merely i n c o n g r u o u s - b e t w e e n what ought to be and what is. In a word, I'm talking about balance. Those Business Horizons /January-February 1982
41
who would subdivide Experience more productive, and it goes far in into the serious and the comic, the making the c o m p a n y more compasfrivolous and the earnest, plunge sionate. Only the deadly earnest through life with blinders fastened write sentences that begin "It is our firmly to their heads. Extraneous understanding that the reports are matter like imagination or j o y or to be delivered to the client in playfulness is ruled out in advance. J u n e " when they mean "We'll send y o u the reports in J u n e . " The bad " ~ k ' T o wonder senior executives instincts of the former usually shake their heads and won- harden into a faceless habit; the der where the business latter are likely to keep, and atschools have failed. A prig is no fun tract, more clients. at lunch, b u t he or she is even more To be sure, one humanities depressing at the junior executive's course does not necessarily make a desk. Doing business is a human person humane, any more than one activity, and a sense of humor is an course in humor will give s o m e b o d y essential ingredient of our human- a lifelong, healthy perspective, or ity. The unrelievedly serious face one swallow is synonymous with quickly becomes a corporate liabil- summer. But as m y mother used to ity. insist: "It can't hurt!" H u m o r has Put another way: humor is cost always been one of our best naeffective. It helps a c o m p a n y be
iN
tional resources. Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain, Will Rogers, James Thurber, and Woody Allen can trade quips, and stand comparison, with the best humorists produced anywhere. In fact, I'd like to believe that our country's productivity, its prosperity, its very progress as a nation, is related directly to our sense of humor, our easy adaptability, as a people. And I think the senior executives Mr. Cronin polled might agree. H u m o r is very practical, enormously powerful, stuff. I say this realizing full well that m y back row may b e c o m e filled with three-piece pinstriped suits, frantically taking notes. Luckily, I've got a good sense of humor. They're more than welcome. [55]