How can you use humour to build rapport and trust?

Humour can be incredibly useful in professional communication. This is because making someone laugh can help you build rapport, establish trust and create stronger relationships.

I've seen this throughout my career in journalism, diplomacy, corporate communications, public speaking and comedy.

And I've become increasingly interested in what actually happens when we use humour well.

On The Science of Being Funny podcast, I spoke with David Chin, Chief Operating Officer at the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia. David has more than 30 years of senior leadership experience and has worked extensively with people from different professional and cultural backgrounds.

He also completed one of my stand-up comedy courses at Sydney Comedy School earlier this year.

We talked about how humour can help build rapport and trust, why relationships matter in professional communication, and how these ideas apply when you're communicating across cultures.

How does humour help build rapport?

Before starting Sydney Comedy School, I was at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for five years.

I learned a lot there about diplomacy, influence, and even humour.

I was on an Australian-American taskforce for around six months, about the 2014 visit to Australia by then Secretary of State, John Kerry.

I would watch them in these high-level meetings with us, and admire their tradecraft where they used humour to build rapport, lower our defences, and pursue their objectives.

The Americans would make small talk. They'd joke. Everyone in the room would be laughing.

And the second the laughter would die down, they would throw a curveball into the meeting, by asking for something that we, the Australians, found very difficult. And because they had developed good rapport with us, we were more likely to find a way to compromise and say “yes” to this difficult ask.

I saw this happen enough times that I realised it wasn't accidental. The humour was helping to build rapport before the serious part of the conversation began.

I've seen the same principle work in comedy, public speaking and business.

Can humour help build trust?

During the podcast, David told me about meeting a barrister through work. A joke about being an absent dad opened up a more personal conversation, and the professional relationship eventually developed into a friendship.

I think this points to something important about building trust.

When we're communicating professionally, we often focus on demonstrating our competence. But people are also trying to work out who we are and whether they want a relationship with us.

Humour gives us one way of revealing something about ourselves. And the best part, is that we can be very selective about what we reveal. Comedy gives us the ability to showcase our vibe, rather than necessarily sharing a great deal of information.

Often times, vibe is enough for our audience.

It gives audiences a sense of who we are, what we bring to a room, and what they can get from our company.

And I see this in both stand-up comedy and public speaking. The most engaging speakers showcase enough of their vibes and personality, that it allows audiences to get to know them, and to like them.

How can you use humour at work?

Humour is most useful when it serves a larger purpose, and often at the small talk phase of an interaction.

You might use it to acknowledge something awkward, make fun of yourself, break tension or recognise something everyone else is already thinking.

I see this particularly with people working in sales. Audiences already have assumptions about salespeople. Sometimes acknowledging those assumptions with humour right at the beginning of a meeting can immediately change the dynamic and make the interaction much more open and meaningful.

At DFAT, we would also think about important engagements in three parts: what happened before the meeting, during the meeting and afterwards.

The relationship surrounding a conversation is often just as important as the points made inside it.

If you're pitching an idea, selling something or trying to influence a stakeholder, humour can help establish that relationship before you make your argument or ask. It worked for the Americans in the taskforce I was in. And it can work for you as well.

How do you use humour across different cultures?

David was born in Malaysia, moved to Australia when he was 12 and has spent much of his career working internationally.

I've also lived and worked overseas, including in Japan, and worked at SBS and DFAT with people from a wide range of cultural backgrounds.

One of the biggest lessons from those experiences was that speaking across different cultures forces us to change our communication style, patterns and habits.

Every culture has its own style of humour and comedy.

And when we engage with different cultures, we get to experiment and break our standard communication or storytelling mould.

This may be daunting, but it can also create new freedom, giving you the ability to experiment and find new sides to yourself.

This is the reason why so many of us enjoy international travel, and why we sometimes feel like a different person when we are in new environments.

I noticed this particularly when I lived in Japan. Because I knew so little about the culture when I arrived, I was constantly asking questions. I was curious about what people were doing and why they were doing it. Strangely, I felt much freer than I had in countries where I thought I understood the culture and was trying to fit in.

David and I kept coming back to curiosity: ask questions, pay attention to how people respond and be willing to adjust.

Humour can greatly assist with this process because it gives us a way to test the relationship. We can make an observation, reveal something about ourselves or play with something happening in the moment, and see how the other person responds.

The aim isn't necessarily to learn the rules of another culture and then perfectly follow them. Sometimes communicating across cultures gives us permission to break some of our own rules as well.

I've noticed Japanese friends behave differently when they're visiting me in Australia. I behave differently when I'm overseas too.

Engaging with another culture can give both people permission to meet somewhere in the middle and create a different way of communicating together.

Humour can be particularly powerful in that space. It helps us move beyond the things that make us different and discover the things that make us laugh, connect and understand each other.

Useful links

Listen to The Science of Being Funny on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4XJm1FDrlwx7JZW2HtOcVg?si=mULEIZrLRHGNtAlwgIZiAA

Learn comedy with Sydney Comedy School: https://www.sydneycomedyschool.com.au/

Learn more about David Chin and the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia: https://www.amcham.com.au/