The entertainment industry

On this Comic Relief Day, Jean-Louis Barsoux looks at the peculiar use of humour in Britain's businesses. Managers up and down Britain today will strolled into work wearing red noses. They did this for the charitable cause Comic Relief. But having worked extensively with managers in France and Germany, I could ill-imagine such comic exhibitionism in a Continental work setting. This set me thinking about the peculiar role played by humour in British organisations.

In most countries there are fairly strict norms about the extent to which humour is allowed to intrude on business. Certain targets are forbidden and certain occasions are deemed inappropriate. That is rarely the case in Britain where business and humour mix quite happily. On the contrary, the British aversion is to seriousness. As John Mole wrote of British business in Mind Your Manners: "Humour is expected at all levels, between all levels, and on all occasions. It is important to be entertaining on every possible occasion, public or private."

During meetings, for example, it is commonplace for British managers to inject humorous asides into the discussion that make no contribution to the matter in hand. Take the case of the head of department who reported that there were fundamental problems in the typing pool. Before he could elaborate, one of his colleagues chipped in: "The one-armed secretary, for a start."

British managers are always on the lookout for openings into which to squirt humour. These flippant interruptions will barely disrupt proceedings. There will be a laugh, and the participants will quickly slip back into serious mode.

This constant oscillation between serious and frivolous is characteristic of the British management style - and can prove frustrating and confusing for foreigners not accustomed to it. It was noted by Michael Johnson, an American and the former editor of the British-based magazine International Management. "One often encounters an interesting schizophrenia in British managers. They can be incredibly funny, and loose, and animated in a very witty way for five minutes and then instantly switch to a very serious demeanour, which I personally find a little disconcerting."

But humour, in the British scheme of things, often represents more than a bit of light relief. It corresponds to a deeper need and serves as a cover for a variety of ends: to criticise without alienating, to defuse tension or anxiety, to introduce new ideas, to bond teams, ease relationships and elicit cooperation. In other words, British managers are partial to applied as well as pure humour.

For instance, in one company, an executive who had committed a rather underhand manoeuvre, later returned to his office to find a knife smeared in ketchup lying on his desk. Beside the knife was a note saying, "I found this in my back. I believe it belongs to you." Humour is regularly used in Britain as a way of delivering unpalatable messages without direct confrontation.

Similarly, humour is often the first option when tension or inertia threatens to bring a group discussion to a standstill. Former JWT chairman, Jeremy Bullmore, endorses this lighthearted approach. "In meetings where tension is building up and the sense of opposition is greater than the issue demands, then humour is often the best way to puncture that. I can allow both sides to realise they're getting over-concerned about something quite trivial. They can feel foolish. They can join in the laughter. And you can smother the situation that way."

Sometimes British managers use humour as a means of testing ideas. Within the protective cordon of humour there are no sacred cows. Even outlandish comments about selling the company or sacking the chairman become possible. Humour, then, helps to introduce new ideas on to the agenda and to test their validity. An unusual idea, disguised as a joke, can be finessed into the discussion with impunity. If it elicits a reaction like "that's not such a stupid idea", then the originator has carte blanche to reformulate the idea and relaunch it as a serious proposition.

Humour, in Britain, is also central to channelling group behaviour and fostering team spirit. During meetings, for instance, British managers are particularly given to teasing as a way of bringing people into line. So, rather than condemn a verbose manager outright, one regional director in the construction industry preferred to marvel at the fact that "he hasn't drawn breath for five minutes".

Teasing is acceptable in Britain. It is a mild rebuke in a situation where open criticism or a formal warning is deemed inappropriate. Custom requires the "guilty party" to laugh at the tease, thereby acknowledging the deviant action, but allows him or her to rejoin the group without losing face. Typically, when someone arrives late to a meeting, teasing is used to mark the violation while quickly returning to a state of consensus among those present.

Shared jokes establish and perpetuate shared values. In Britain, they provide the stimulus that turns a group of individuals into a team. In his book, Making it Happen, former ICI chairman, Sir John Harvey-Jones, explained: "Laughter is a great aid to team building, and if you intend to run your business in a moderately light-hearted manner it is extremely difficult for those, fortunately few, beings who have no sense of humour at all to, so to speak, 'join the club'."

Clearly, in Britain, much is achieved through humour. But that observation does not tell us very much. Of more interest is why humour plays such a big role in British business.

One explanation is obvious. Humour plays a bigger role in British business simply because it is so highly esteemed in British society. It is credited with many things, not least contributing to Britain's survival in 1940. However farfetched this may be, Britons believe it to be true. This helps to explain why British society exalts humour in a way other nations have not. It has dignified humour with respectability and made a virtue out of it. As Oxford professor Theodore Zeldin once wrote: "England, alone in Europe, raised humour to the status of a trait of national character."

For Britons, a sense of humour says something very important about a person - something beyond ability, quick wit or cleverness - something about the character of a person. Thus foreigners will note that profiles of business leaders in the British quality press invariably make some reference to the individual's sense of humour - that it was "mordant", "wry", "irrepressible", or "wicked". With a single adjective to go on, Britons are able to summon up a whole personality.

Humour is a vital point de repare in Britain. It is how Britons situate people. Just as the French are interested in intellectual capacity (as given by educational credentials), and Americans look for evidence of personal drive (often using salary as a measure), so Britons want to know about the sense of humour.

Humour is seen as a byword for charisma, social skills and persuasiveness, and these are the core attributes of the successful British manager. Humour upholds one's right to manage in Britain, as might displays of intellectual flourish in France, or technical grasp in Germany. Humour also suggests a certain improvisational skill that the British admire in management, as in life.

But beyond that, in the British mind, humour is equated with humanity - and that is deemed a vital quality in leaders. As Wembley plc chairman Sir Brian Wolfson sees it: "I don't know of anybody in commerce, industry or politics who's had real power who isn't to some extent changed - and I think that the mitigating factor against appalling or disproportionate change is whether they have humour. As I see it, a strong sense of humour, and particularly a self-deprecating one, is the strongest single antidote to power corrupting."

It transpires that having a sense of humour and knowing how to deploy it, is considered advantageous for British managers and leaders. It is no surprise that the British public has adopted, as its managerial role model, not a go-getting Lee Iacocca figure, but the eccentric former ICI chairman Sir John Harvey-Jones. And who is the great man's heir apparent - why wacky Richard Branson, chairman of Virgin, of course. This does not mean that every British manager has a sense of humour. What it does mean, is that those who lack one are considered to have a chink in their armour.

This reflects a different conception of management. Management, as far as the French are concerned, is primarily an intellectually complex activity. The British, on the other hand, regard it first and foremost as a socially complex activity - one that has more to do with personality than with brains. The idea in Britain is not to beat subordinates into submission with superior arguments or logic but to persuade them using "a bit of kidology" and humour. British managers routinely soften up colleagues with humour as a precursor to asking a favour. Take the finance manager in a UK brewery who phones a colleague and introduces himself as "your friendly, neighbourhood pain-in-the-arse". As Brits see it, humour is a way of getting people into a rosy frame of mind without plying them with alcohol.

Humour is also vital to British management as a mitigating force. It helps to reconcile the needs of business with the values of British society. Many of the traits associated with "good business practice" - straight-talking, confrontation, candour, assertiveness, tenacity, professionalism and so on -are not valued by British society. In Britain, it is important on a social level to be "nice"; that is, courteous, unabrasive, and to carry one's rank and expertise lightly.

Humour allows British managers to be tough and to point out behavioural irregularities without losing either dignity or compassion. As Sir John Harvey-Jones, confirms: "Much of what we say in Britain is indirect. We tend to be evasive. But sometimes you have to call a spade a bloody shovel - and the only way to do that without offence is to use humour" The managerial function requires managers to tell others what to do, and this can lead to resistance and resentment. In a culture where restraint is the norm, humour serves as a veil for embarrassment and aggression. Sir Brian Wolfson, explains: "Humour is our way of saying the things that the Japanese would say by getting drunk - and then whatever's been said doesn't count the next morning. You can, with humour, be far more acerbic than you can without it."

Constant recourse to humour therefore reflects British discomfort with directness. Humour is a way of delivering criticism with a smile, of singling out bad behaviour while confirming a sense of belonging, of challenging authority without appearing to do so. In this respect, humour is perhaps a British strength compensating for a British weakness.

Jean-Louis Barsoux is a senior research fellow at INSEAD and the author of Funny Business (Cassell).

An executive who had committed an underhand manoeuvre found a knife smeared in ketchup on his desk with a note saying: I found this in my back. I believe it belongs to you