Tip 86: Add some relevant humour
If you can carefully incorporate some humour into the flow of your presentation, this can be a very useful way to keep your audience's interest and rapport. Adults may learn better and be more receptive to your ideas when the mood is light.
Having humour does not just mean jokes. There are so many ways to introduce humour to lighten the load of an otherwise heavy presentation without restricting yourself to jokes. In any case, jokes can be dangerous as some members of your audience may not “get” the joke and you may find them alienated unnecessarily. You need to know your audience really well to know which jokes would work and which would fall flat, embarrassing both you and your audience. If you are going to use jokes, use them against yourself and never against other others – “I am the joke” is the safest approach when making a joke.
Use your imagination to think of ways of adding humour, depending on your own skills and confidence. Use the extremes of your life to build humour in your story telling. Many points which are actually profoundly deep can be illustrated by a good cartoon or photograph with or without a caption. It may be better for you to provide the caption in real time. If you are able, there may also be a place for some magic tricks, handwriting analysis, or a song in your presentation, although you do have to be totally confident in delivering these things if you want your audience to be totally at ease while receiving them.
Remember that there are tremendous cross-cultural variations in sense of humour and in norms related to gender, sexuality, politics, race and religion. Humour that is intentionally or accidentally disrespectful, confrontational or reveals your prejudices must be avoided as it can alienate your audience without good reason.
If you are going to use humour but your audience is not expecting it, it is sometimes a good idea to first give them permission to laugh! Tell them up front to enjoy themselves, or that you are about to tell a joke, and they will be more receptive to your style of presentation. If a boss is present amongst a group of peers, bear in mind that the audience may not laugh until they see the boss lighten up and give them permission to appreciate your humour.
Be careful if you are planning to open your presentation with humour: if the humour does not work, your entire presentation will have been started on the wrong foot. It is therefore best to avoid opening with a joke unless you know you're the type of person who can tell jokes in public.
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