00:00 Shonna Dorsey: Welcome to Tech Talk, a podcast featuring employees and leaders discussing all things tech at Mutual of Omaha. Join us to learn what tech professionals can gain from a career with us. Let’s talk tech.
00:12 Brian Poppe: All right everybody, welcome again to another episode of Tech Talk, sponsored by Mutual Omaha. I’m Brian Poppe.
00:18 Shonna Dorsey: And I’m Shonna Dorsey
00:20 Brian Poppe: Shonna, it’s good to see you. What have you been watching on TV lately?
00:24 Shonna Dorsey: So, I’m a huge true crime fan so I’ve been watching a lot of that. You know whether it’s at the gym or making dinner whatever. So that’s my go to, how about yours?
00:33 Brian Poppe: Yeah, I’ve also been watching crimes but they’re a little less true crime and more staged by the producers. I’ve been really into Bachelor in Paradise lately. So slowly getting caught up on that and I know that aired over the summer.
So very fun. And I don’t know, maybe crimes against humanity would be the way to describe those rather than true crime.
00:52 Brian Poppe: Anyway, today we’ve got Jim Maxwell, Organizational Change Manager here at Mutual of Omaha. Jim’s been with Mutual for six years and he’s had an interesting career to get here. So, Jim, why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background.
01:07 Jim Maxwell: Sure, Brian. And thanks Shonna and Brian for having me, thrilled to be here. So, my background started in broadcasting. My degree is in Journalism with a Broadcasting major. The radio was my first love. I’ve done television, behind the scenes, behind the camera in television, and a lot of announcing in radio, so a lot of production background. And then I transferred those skills to the corporate arena because frankly, it paid a lot better.
01:32 Jim Maxwell: If you’ve ever worked in radio, you would know what I meant by that. I actually took a pay cut to go work in radio after waiting tables for four years in college. So that brought me to several opportunities. I ended up working for some advertising agencies, I’ve been a creative director, I have worked on commercials, I’ve worked on talk shows, I’ve worked on other podcasts.
01:54 Jim Maxwell: So, a wide variety of things. And my corporate journey took me to Mutual of Omaha eventually. I started out on the agency side supporting our agents in the field in the Northeast region. And then I moved to the dark side, which is the I/T of Mutual, which we refer to as Information Services or I/S. And I’ve been a part of that organization for five years or so and it has been outstanding. I’ve loved the culture on both sides of the fence. It’s wonderful to work here.
And I’ve had a lot of opportunities, some of which we’re about to discuss.
02:30 Shonna Dorsey: Great. Jim So please tell us how you’re able to incorporate humor into what you do at Mutual of Omaha?
02:37 Jim Maxwell: Well, it’s a great question Shonna and it is a little bit loaded. So, my background, I have a comedy background which helps. I’ve been writing comedy for almost 25 years now. I published a book called “Dad Logic”, which is essentially all the comedy I could use in comedy clubs. Standup is very different than writing for a book or writing for a presentation, but I have done standup, and I currently write for a handful of standup comedians.
03:07 Jim Maxwell: So, the organizational thoughts that go through your head when you’re writing comedy are the same as any other form of communication. So, when you’re talking about things in corporate America and how you’re going to incorporate humor there, it’s the same questions you’re going to ask yourself when you’re developing any kind of content. And that‘s what resonates with your audience? Understanding your audience. And that means understanding their pain points.
03:32 Jim Maxwell: Comedy often derives from the pain points people feel in life. And I’m not saying you accentuate the negative and not the positive, but if you start with the negatives, that’s what resonates with people. So, you have to ask yourself questions. If you’re looking at corporate America, what is it that frustrates me about what’s going on? What is it that scares me? What makes me angry? What makes me nervous? And usually you take those concepts, build it into essentially what keeps people up at night. And if you meet them there, with humor, they’re willing to listen to just about anything you say because you’ve taken the time to tell them, I want to understand what it is that drives you. And now I’m going to stick my neck out a little bit and maybe make fun of that.
04:17 Jim Maxwell: People appreciate that more than you know! Whether you succeed or fail in making them laugh, at least you showed them you care enough to understand where they are and meet them where they are.
04:29 Brian Poppe: Jim That’s great. This little bit about finding the pain points and then poking on those is perfect. So as people are thinking about how to incorporate humor into their day to day activities, there’s probably a good chance they’re going to run across a mistake or two. Tell me a little bit about the common mistakes that people might make when trying to incorporate humor.
04:50 Jim Maxwell: Sure. There’s a lot of mistakes people make. Just remember that funny isn’t funny on its own, there has to be a nugget of truth to it. So, anything that you’ve walked away from, remembering, and that really made you laugh was probably something that resonated with you emotionally. But the person who said that made that joke universal enough for you and everyone else in the room to understand. What people often mistakenly do is make the comedy too personal. They’re trying to reference something that only they and maybe a handful of their closest friends or family members could understand. So, you might be talking about Uncle Dave, who always embarrasses you with family events because you understand the context behind that. But if you’re trying to weave that in front of a larger audience, you need to make that more universal. I can’t stress that enough!
05:37 Jim Maxwell: And then, of course, in corporate humor, funny at the expense of individuals is not acceptable. You can get away with that in a comedy club when you’re doing crowd work. But in corporate America, find a more universal way to address that. And the best way, there are really two easy ways to do that if you’re stuck, going well, that’s great advice Jim but, but how do I actually do that?
06:01 Jim Maxwell: One, make fun of yourself. Make yourself the target. Self-effacement helps relax the rest of the crowd because they know well, he’s focusing on himself, not us. That’s funny. And let’s move on because if this person is authentic enough to make fun of themselves, it’s okay for us to relax. And then the second point is get leadership in on the joke. I can’t stress that enough!
06:26 Jim Maxwell: Mutual has a great culture and is willing to laugh at itself. But if you’re in a culture that maybe isn’t ready to laugh at itself, get leadership in on the joke. Because once people see leaders poking fun at themselves, or maybe we’re getting a laugh at their expense, all of a sudden, the room loosens up and you’d be surprised how much more amenable people are to laughing, to understanding what you’re saying. And by the way, it’s not just about the comedy. It’s about all the content that follows that no matter how dry it is. You’ve demonstrated your authenticity, therefore, you have credibility with that audience. And then another mistake people make is assuming that comedy club clean is corporate clean. And the reason I specifically mention that is it’s not that they’re getting up and trying to do stand up in meetings, but I often attend demos where people will share videos of stand-up comedian sets.
07:20 Jim Maxwell: But what they don’t understand is most of that or an SNL skit is not appropriate for corporate America. Yes, it’s funny. I’m laughing, but you have to understand that much of what that comedy entails really is not corporate clean. So just keep that in mind. People do it honestly, they make the mistake, there’s no evil intent. But stay away from the production stuff that was aired, even if it was aired on the networks, this is probably not corporate clean.
07:49 Jim Maxwell: And again, if you’re trying to do humor yourself, I think we should pat those people on the back and applaud for them, because when you stick your neck out like that, that’s hard to do. You’re putting yourself out there and if it fails, it’s okay. But, if you are putting yourself out there and you’re trying to do humor and it didn’t work, don’t wait for the laugh. Just move on and keep going.
08:08 Jim Maxwell: If you stand there and acknowledge all the failures or do the worst thing, something that one person, who is a public speaker whom I work with regularly enough to tell them over and over again because he does this, he thinks the crowd didn’t get the joke and feels compelled to explain the joke to the audience.
08:27 Jim Maxwell: Don’t do that! A, they got the joke and B, if you do that, oh, they’re going to tell you exactly why they didn’t think it was funny. And then finally, if humor is new to your corporation, take baby steps. Don’t go from 0 to 60 in one meeting. I had someone at Mutual comment on a recent meeting, say it would be interesting to see how Jim’s presentation skills have enhanced over the last couple of years and I laughed because I know what they meant by it.
08:55 Jim Maxwell: It was a very nice compliment, but at the same time I thought, well, I haven’t changed a bit. I just had to introduce comedy a little bit at a time. And when you’re at a culture like Mutual, you have to do that. Earn some respect, earn the ability to be, you know, to exercise autonomy and then take it from there. Add a little bit more each time until eventually one day you’re like, WOW! How did we get here? This is really fun! Yeah, it is but, we took baby steps. So that’s just a recommendation if you don’t have the benefit of a culture as wonderful as ours.
09:31 Shonna Dorsey: That’s awesome. So how do you think fun and humor impacts the culture of an organization?
09:37 Jim Maxwell: Well, there’s nothing more defacing in a good way, right? There’s humor, brings the room together, just like food brings the room together, right? We can all argue over many things in this world, but the one thing we can all agree on, if somebody sets some really good food down in the conference room, we’re all going. Or if you smell something that’s in the kitchen, you’re going to go up there and talk whether you want to talk to those in-laws or not, because the food is good. Humor brings people together. It also tells the audience that you care enough about them and give them credit for having a brain that they’re going to understand that they maybe needed a laugh at that point. Not maybe, they do! Everybody needs to laugh at every given point of the day because we all have day jobs and we’re all dealing with stress.
10:23 Jim Maxwell: And there’s nothing more illuminating and relaxing than just a good laugh, right? It’s an involuntary thing. It loosens you up for the rest of the meeting. And it’s not that the rest of the meeting is all comedy. I’m not saying the meetings should all be yuk yuks, but when you’ve already demonstrated that level of authenticity that humor brings to the table, that vibe carries through the rest of the meeting and people resonate more, they listen more.
10:48 Jim Maxwell: Because people don’t always remember exactly what you say, but they do remember how you made them feel. And if you make them feel good, they’re going to leave that meeting and guess what? They’re going to come back the next time.
11:03 Brian Poppe: Yeah, that’s great. So, Jim, with that type of culture in mind, like that’s the type of thing that you’re trying to build. Can you give us a few examples of how you’ve seen that happen here at Mutual of Omaha?
11:14 Jim Maxwell: Sure, there are many. Well, corporate America has no shortage of examples of things you can make fun of. We’ve all been there, right? We’ve all been part of cultures. It’s never perfect. It is not perfect at Mutual, too, right? We have many things that we can poke fun at that the secret is understanding that when you’re in a culture like Mutual’s, you will be granted autonomy to do things like incorporate humor into various meetings, events and things of that nature.
11:46 Jim Maxwell: However, you still have to demonstrate the ability to be a good steward of that humor. Keep it corporate clean, not call people out specifically, we’re not here to hurt feelings. We’re not here to bully people with humor. We’re here to loosen people up. But the beautiful thing about Mutual’s culture is once you introduce that and people get a flavor for that, this is a company and a culture full of extremely intelligent people, and they not only care about the customers, coworkers here truly care about each other.
12:18 Jim Maxwell: And once they realize, hey, this is something that resonates with people and people like this, well, you’ll get the green light in our culture to do more. More is always better, right? Not too much like we’ve said before, we don’t want 60 minute meetings that are 58 minutes of comedy and then 2 minutes of business.
12:37 Jim Maxwell: We still have business to conduct, but you have to show people we’re willing to be human, we’re willing to be as authentic as our culture is. And there’s nothing more authentic than introducing humor and getting a laugh out of people.
12:55 Shonna Dorsey: Yeah, I agree. I was thinking or reflecting as you were talking on the funny at work or fun at work video that was used in one of our broader organization meetings, and how I was literally crying, laughing about it. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
13:10 Jim Maxwell: Sure. First of all, I’m glad you loved it so much. However, crying at it might not be what I originally intended, Shonna, but that’s okay. Oh, that’s great, I did a funny video and it made someone cry. So, we have a lot of things in corporate America, I’m not just talking about Mutual, but as I said before, there are plenty of bears to poke in corporate America. And, in a virtual world sometimes living virtually through software isn’t always smooth as silk. I think we can all agree. And there are certain things in virtual meetings that quite simply drive people crazy. There are eye rolling moments and we as adults, I’m guilty of it too, we’re used to working virtually, and sometimes we forget our professionalism in meetings and people do things during virtual meetings that aren’t professional.
13:59 Jim Maxwell: So, we had one option, one option was to create a video on etiquette and how to properly conduct yourself during a virtual meeting but, who is going to watch that, right? No one’s going to watch that. They’re going to be, that’s a nice video, Jim. I will never watch that. So, what we did was I flipped it upside down and said, well, let’s make it funny, so let’s go back to what I said. Let’s see if I followed my own advice. Yes, I did. What are the pain points? What is it about virtual meetings that are driving people crazy? I know, because we get survey results on one of the largest meetings we hold, which involves over a thousand people. So that’s a pretty scientific feedback and I got plenty of pain points from that.
14:38 Jim Maxwell: And what I did was instead of ignoring them and ignoring the elephant in the room, I attacked each and every one but with humor. So how do you do that? You take the pain point, then of course you take it to the absurd, right? To an absurd level that no one would ever do. But it’s funny, and you’re making the point that, yes, if we went down this slippery slope, it could get this bad. So why even start?
14:59 Jim Maxwell: Let’s behave, let’s be adults. So, it’s funny, and I’m glad you thought it was funny, but I never do funny without a purpose in corporate America. It has to be funny with a purpose. I do a lot of videos that people say are funny and that’s great, but they also learn something from it.
15:16 Jim Maxwell: But you know what the secret is, Shonna? They didn’t realize they were learning because they were too busy laughing. And that’s a great way to learn because you remember that a lot longer when you laugh.
15:27 Brian Poppe: So, I guess that’s what makes you a great Organizational Change Manager. So, thanks for joining us today.
15:33 Jim Maxwell: Thank you.
15:34 Brian Poppe: Yeah. Appreciate having you. This has been another episode of Tech Talk. Again, hosted by Brian Poppe.
15:40 Shonna Dorsey: And, Shonna Dorsey, thanks for joining us.
15:43 Brian Poppe: Have a great day, everyone.