PSYCHOLOGICAL BENEIFITS OF BUSINESS MEETING COMEDY

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By DALE DAUTEN, a/k/a "The Corporate Curmudgeon"

Nationally Syndicated Columnist

Instead of "humor consultants," perhaps corporate executives need a modern version of the Royal Fool. Hiring a humor consultant is a humorless act; it's usually management bringing someone in to fix the employees. The Fool would understand that humor doesn't make the environment; the environment makes humor. The Corporate Fool role would be to executives what the Royal Fool was to kings and queens -- to amuse, yes, but also to put a clown suit on the truth and slip it past the guards.

What got me thinking about humor, truth and bosses was talking with Jack Fiala of Corporate Sidekicks, out of Dayton, Ohio. He's the voice of a puppet that travels the country getting paid to insult executives. The puppet works under various aliases -- my favorite is Harvey Hightrousers, who keeps his pants pulled all the way up "to make sure your butt is always covered." The puppet becomes the Corporate Fool.

I watched a videotape of a top executive of an auto company talking with the puppet, while hundreds of field reps sat in the audience. The executive was new, taking over after layoffs and cost-cutting had sapped morale. The puppet said to the new executive: "So you're the Big Gun they brought in to solve our problems. Big Gun -- low caliber and big bore." And then the puppet asked: "So why did you drag us all to Detroit? Is it one last pink-slip party before we're all fired?" And then there's this exchange:

Executive: We'll be meeting all day, till 5:30.

Puppet: Till 5:30!? We're going to be locked in here till 5:30? Who planned this all-day snooze-fest?

Executive: The sessions were planned by a cross-functional team at headquarters.

Puppet: A cross-functional team at headquarters? The last time a cross-functional team at headquarters actually made a decision it took them two weeks to figure out which of two substances was the Shinola.

And why would executives pay Fiala to insult them? Because Fiala takes the part of the audience, saying what they are thinking but would never say. And that allows speakers to respond to the otherwise unspoken questions and complaints, and in doing so, prove they know the problems and, moreover, are unafraid of the truth.

Speaking of fear, the decisions about the content at corporate gatherings usually flow from one of three mind-sets about the nature of the meeting: the opportunity to inform, the opportunity to learn and the opportunity for disaster.

Some meetings are carefully scripted and rehearsed around the unspoken theme of "Here's What We Want You to Know," with a subtheme of, "Here's How You Should Think." On the other hand, the best companies treat meetings as a kind of festival of learning. Not just teaching, but learning. The best meetings are built around what management can learn and how management can help innovate.

 There's a huge difference between figuring out what you want to tell people vs. figuring out what they are thinking. That's the beauty of working with someone like Fiala and his Harvey Hightrousers -- you can’t make fun of what's wrong unless you understand it. And it's not funny when it's preaching; the inside joke is that you know they know your weaknesses and mistakes.

 In sum, people are always going to make fun of the boss. It's just that in good companies -- the ones that can admit mistakes and try again to innovate - it happens when the boss is around.

Hey, why don't you call me on the Corporate Curmudgeon message line, 612-673-9030, and leave me your opinions, questions and suggestions? Or you can write me in care of King Features, 235 E. 45th St, New York, NY 10017, send e-mail to dale@dauten.com or visit http://www.dauten.com on the Web. Distributed by King Features.