What Managers Can Learn from Comedians When Onboarding

Onboarding isn’t a new topic – some great bloggers and HR thinkers have done a fine job of outlining key onboarding considerations for any organization. In fact you can read a bunch of their ideas here – just enter the word onboarding. But today I’ve invited Dan Bingham, manager of creative talent by day and comedian extraordinaire by night to share a different take – his tips for managers when it comes to making that personal connection to new employees during the onboarding process.

From the second you get on stage and grab the microphone, hundreds of eyes are immediately judging you. From the soles of your shoes to the tips of the hairs on your head, the audience is trying to figure out “your deal.” Do you look funny? Are you attractive? Overweight? Hobbit-sized? Too old? Not old enough? The audience is examining you physically, trying to solve some sort of equation where the answer is whether they like you or not. A room full of brains processes all this stuff before you even open your mouth to say “hello.”

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This is the life of a stand up comedian. I know this because I am one, and I go through this process every weekend. And in comedy, as in life, first impressions are everything. I can tell from the first 30 seconds of my act whether or not I’ve made a good first impression, and whether or not the next 30 minutes will be a side-splitting night of hilarity, or soul crushing train wreck with no lights at the end of the tunnel.

The same can be said for that new bright-eyed employee on his or her first day of work. Okay maybe a little less dramatic but you get the point. They did their best to make a good first impression and it must have worked because here they are. Now the roles have reversed, they are watching your every move, and now’s your chance to blow their socks off.

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So what does stand up comedy have to do with employee onboarding? Plenty. There are plenty of parallels between making a room full of people laugh and welcoming new employees aboard. So let’s start from the beginning, or should I say, before the beginning. Remember when I mentioned how audiences judge you as soon as you step on stage? (I really hope so; it was less than 10 seconds ago so.) It sounded intimidating right? Well in truth, whenever I go on stage, I’ve already been judging them since way before they even took a sip from their first drink!

Knowing Your Audience

When performing in a comedy club, I always sit in the back of the room and watch the audience members file in, gathering various information. Is there a lot of grey hair in the crowd or are they mostly students? Are there happy couples, disgruntled singles, or vice versa? I also like to ask the club manager if there are any special fundraisers or causes that night. And finally, I pay close attention to how the host interacts with the audience to start the show. Are there people from out of town? Where are they from? Is anyone celebrating a birthday, anniversary, divorce etc.?

Why do I do this? Because I’d get the same blank stares from young people if I talked about babies and back pains, as I would talking to Australians about the hilarious subtleties of Guatemala. Now, my act is my act and I always stay true to myself, but I make minor adjustments here and there to ensure that the majority of my jokes hit home with the majority of people for the majority of the time. After doing a little research I can determine which jokes will be appropriate and which ones I should save for the late show.

(On a little side note, I once performed for the Association for the Blind, and I quickly realized how many of my jokes relied on facial expressions and body movements. You’d hate to bomb in that situation, they’ve all got sticks and dogs! Although they loved it when I described myself as 6-foot man with blue eyes, brown hair, and a 34 double D cup.)

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The same concept applies when introducing new members to the team. The more you know about the person you’ve hired, the easier it will be to relate to them on a human level as you walk them through their new professional life. You already know about their employment experience, but who are they as people? Where did they grow up? Are they married with children? Did they ever watch the show Married With Children? What are their hobbies? Favourite foods? The more questions you ask them, the easier it will be for them to open up and relax. While they’re not obliged to divulge every part of their past to you, they will be more open to sharing information about themselves if you open up about yourself first. This will make things much less awkward when introducing them to the people they’ll be working with.

If you don’t know anything about your new addition, introducing them to others can be unnerving for all parties involved. More often than not, new employees are introduced like this:

YOU: “Bill, I’d like you to meet Chris. He’ll be working with the performance review software in HR.”
BILL: “Nice to meet you Chris. Welcome aboard!”
CHRIS: “Thanks, nice to meet you Bill.”
BILL: awkward silence
CHRIS: awkward silence
YOU: awkwardly shifting your eyes back and forth from Chris to Bill
YOU: “Okay, moving on.”

Now, let’s see how this scenario plays out with a little background info on Chris.

YOU: “Bill, I’d like you to meet Chris. He’s the new manager in the accounting department. Chris once made an appearance in season 3 of The Bachelorette.”
BILL: “No way! My wife loves that show! How many roses did you get?”

Bam. Best friends forever.

Engaging Your Audience

If the setups to my jokes are of little to no interest to the audience, or if I look bored from having repeated the same jokes over and over, from club to club, city to city, night after night, the same words again and again, just keep on setting them up, knocking them down, like a broken record, skipping on the same track, tic, tic, tic, tic… Still there? Then I failed to demonstrate how dull information, delivered with all the enthusiasm of a napping turtle, will cause you to lose your audience. As a comedian my topics and premises need to be interesting and delivered in a compelling way, otherwise no one will care about the punch lines.

Get excited when describing the company’s perks and benefits. Don’t talk like you’re just going through the motions. Describe their position as you would a fantastic movie you just watched. Tell them some fun stories from last year’s Christmas party, not ALL the stories, but some stories. In fact, a good tip that I’ve always used when dragging new talent through the office, is to treat them as if they are your new best friend, and you’re introducing them to your other best friends. This may sound cheesy, but this keeps your enthusiasm high and it makes new employees excited about working in such a fun environment. Oh, and try not to overwhelm them with tedious paperwork on the first day, they’ll have plenty of time for that over the next several years.

Relating to Your Audience

Comedians are like mirrors: people go to comedy shows because they want to see themselves on stage, and when they see just how ridiculous they can be sometimes, they laugh out loud. They want to hear comedians admit to doing things that only they thought they did. This is one of the reasons why Jerry Seinfeld is so successful: he jokes about the things that everyone has experienced at one point or another. I dare you to find one joke of his where you’re like “I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about!” His jokes are about “nothing,” but at the same time they’re about everything, making him one of the most relatable stand up comics over the last 20 years.

I have a joke about toasters, and why they have “cancel” buttons. This was the first joke I ever wrote, and it still gets the biggest laughs during my act. My reasoning: everyone has a toaster. All toasters have cancel buttons. Everyone has aborted a toasting mission by hitting cancel. Everyone relates.

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New employees are human beings. Talent management involves relating to them. You may have been working at your company for years, but you can surely remember the emotions you went through on your first day. It’s easy to become intimidated by the perfect polished you, so let new people see the imperfections. Talk to them about some of the mistakes you made starting out. When I was a teenager in charge of the kitchen at Pizza Hut, I would see the scared faces of newbies when they messed up a pizza order. So to put them at ease I told them about the time I almost burnt down the restaurant. When the manager in the accounting department hears how the old manager accidentally stapled his tie to the 3rd quarter sales reports, he’ll feel right at home.

Being Honest with Your Audience

This might sound weird and contradictory, but the more honest a comedian is with the audience, the bigger the laughs. If you don’t believe me, run a performance appraisal on Louis CK. And while most comedians tell stories and jokes containing events that aren’t 100% accurate, they all start with the truth. In fact most jokes are exactly that: the setup is a true statement, and the punchline is invented ridiculousness. If you’re honest with the crowd they will trust you, and when an audience trusts you, they will follow you down windy roads into touchy topics like politics, religion and of course, bedroom adventures.

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Being honest with new employees right off the bat earns trust, and from trust comes long term loyalty. Be honest about the tasks they will be performing, talk about the emotions involved with some of these tasks, honestly describing what you went through and how you felt performing them. Describe the humanity of the position. Onboarding, like comedy, is about bridging the gap between the unknown and the familiar. The sooner the crowd likes, relates and trusts you, the sooner everyone can relax and have a good time. And the sooner you get your talent to like, relate and trust their new environment and the people around them, the smoother the transition into their new position, and the sooner they will become efficient producers within the company.

Lastly but most importantly, the best advice anyone ever gave me in the comedy business which applies to every area of life: just be yourself and have fun!