Most people who work in a business setting have surely seen a motivational speaker or two. These are the people who come in and give a speech that motivates employees to be better people, to use their talents and to meet their goals. We have all seen motivational speakers and have all been fired up at the conclusion of the event. Looking back on it, however, do you remember anything that they said? If you have seen a speaker recently, you might, but if not, the message has likely been filed away and forgotten. However, if you are asked to remember something very funny that happened on the same day that the speaker gave their presentation, odds are, you could do it. Laughter helps us remember.
Do Organizations Have Things Backwards?
You may think that in trying times for businesses, the last thing you should do is set up some kind of “motivational comedy routine” when at any time, people could get terminated or have their hours cut. On the contrary, this is a great time to have someone funny come in to give a motivational speech. See, businesses often have the idea that when things get better, staff will be happier. The truth is, however, that this is actually a type of backwards thinking. Happier employees will perform much better than employees who are unhappy. That being said, the faster you make your employees happy, the better they will perform and before you know it, the business has turned around.
Employees will Retain the Message from a Funny Motivational Speaker
In the example above where you were asked to remember something that a motivational speaker told you, you were also asked to remember a funny moment. Odds are, many were able to remember a funny moment but not a specific message from a speaker. Why; because laughter can help us to retain memories because they are happy memories. How laughter does this is still a mystery, but laughter can do a lot of things, like heal, which are still unexplained. When you hire a speaker who uses humor, your employees will not only remember the message that is given, they will actually retain the message…which is the goal of any organization who hires a speaker to motivate their staff.
It is true that there are many types of messages and many types of speakers out there. What you need to determine as an organization is if you want this investment in your business to last a few weeks or possibly months, or do you want this message to stick with your employees to remember the lessons they were taught, for years. The choice is yours, of course, but with a humorous speaker, you can be sure that your message will stick.
