Public Speaking Jokes: Don’t Let The The Joke Be On You

Here is a way to alienate your audience from you faster than anything: tell a joke.

It seems that public speakers all around the world have this idea that in order to make a really good impression or be successful, they need to be funny and clever or do a stand up comedy routine in their speeches. However, one of the worst decisions that a speaker can make is to use humor that falls flat, is inappropriate, offensive or culturally narrow.

If you do not analyze your audience thoroughly enough, you could make the mistake of telling a joke that is funny to one part of the audience and really offensive to another. There is no quicker way to alienate your audience than through the use of misplaced or badly thought out humor.

And I’m not talking about a badly delivered joke. I’m talking about a joke that in one setting with one particular group of people would be considered funny and in another would be considered really inappropriate or rude.

The bad use of humor can cost you big time. You might endear yourself to one part of your audience and totally alienate yourself with the other. And this can cost you in other ways too if the part your audience that you really hoped to connect with is in the alienated group and you don’t even realize it.

I have stressed the importance of carefully analyzing your audience before, but it bears repeating again here with relation to the appropriate use of humor in speech writing and delivery:

Your audience is the reason you are speaking.  Who they are, what they want to learn from you, how receptive they are, their belief systems, youíre your relationship to them, should directly effect your speech content and your appropriate use of humor in your speech.

The style of your delivery, the words and humor that you choose should reflect a careful analysis of the audience and your relationship with them.  How you use humor in your speeches is a very delicate matter.

In relation to your use of humor, consider for example:

    * Are the members of your audience your friends, peers, superiors, subordinates, allies or adversaries?

      Each of these different relationships demands some careful thought as to what they would find funny….or not.       In audiences that are a mixture of these different relationships, it is often better to stick to the facts rather           than insert your foot firmly into your mouth with a bad or unintentionally offensive joke.

    * What is the ratio of men to women in your audience, and what is their age range?

       If you tell a joke that is funny to men, but is considered offensive to women, or vice versa, you will not                endear yourself to your audience as a whole. This can be a critical and costly mistake especially if the people        in your audience whom you really wanted to impress feel that you have been rude or insensitive to them or            their friends. As a professional speaker, you never want to be the cause of an angry audience.

    * How much education or personal background does the audience have with your subject?

      Remember if you tell an “inside” joke to an audience with little or no experience with your professional world or       area of expertise, they won’t know when to laugh or what is supposed to be funny. As a result,you will  annoy       them and they will “check out” on you and start checking their PDA’s for new messages. Losing your                   audience and making them feel stupid is a definite no no.

    * What cultural belief systems and cultural understanding do you and your audience share, and how do         your belief systems and cultural understanding differ?

      More often than not, jokes tend to be culturally or language specific as     well. If you tell a perfectly                   acceptable American joke in English to a predominantly European, Asian or mixed cultural audience, they           might not “get it” and you will be standing there wishing you had read this blog first.

      In audiences where there are groups who may or may not all speak English well, remember that they might           not understand your point of humor or the more subtle cultural metaphors. In this kind of setting, you can               be sure that at least some of the cultural metaphors you relied upon for humor will be lost.
      

      The danger here is that both you and your company could be perceived as culturally insensitive. In this                 global world economy, that could be another very costly error that both you and your company could have              easily avoided by just not telling that joke or story.

So I suggest that if you are going to use humor in your speech, you once again go back and do a thorough demographic analysis of your expected audience. Be aware of the fact that often at the last minute, new
unexpected people can show up to listen to your speech and that can shift your audience demographic dramatically.

Always try to be extremely careful with which jokes or stories you choose to tell in your speeches, if any. You don’t want any of your jokes or stories that may be really funny to you and your buddies in your private lives,  to cost you big time in your professional life. It’s better to not use humor at all than to have the bad joke you tell ultimately be at your own expense.