Guest Column: A Sense of Humour?
Mike Drayton is UK-based and is a graduate of the London Million Dollar Consulting® College.
A sense of humour?
There are two ways of coping emotionally when things go wrong: you can whine, complain and blame other people. Or, you can try to see the funny side, make the best of it, and move on.
Here’s a good story that illustrates this, involving that bane of fleeing villains everywhere: a police dog.
Following the arrest of a suspect, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) asked all officers of the West Midlands force, involved in the arrest, to complete witness statements – including a “PC Peach”. Puzzled, police officers from the Dog Unit wrote back explaining that PC Peach was in fact PD (Police Dog) – Peach – a four year old German Shepherd who, although talented in the chasing down and apprehension of light-fingered villains, was unable to write out a witness statement.
Somewhat surprisingly the lawyers at the CPS took a rather dogmatic attitude, and continued in its demands that Police Dog Peach complete a witness statement.
Eventually Peach’s exasperated handler decided to complete a statement on his four legged colleagues behalf, which read “I chase him. I bite him. Bad man. He tasty. Good boy. Good boy Peach.” The statement was signed with a paw print and forwarded to the CPS.
Peach’s witness statement subsequently found its way onto the internet where it caused much mirth in police stations (and especially canine units) up and down the country. The CPS failed to see the funny side of the incident and have lodged a formal complaint against the officer concerned.
This is a good and simple example of how people can use either positive or negative coping strategies to resolve conflict.
The police (in the right for once) used humour to address and defuse the poor communication skills or lack of common sense in the lawyers of the CPS. Instead of responding in a similar manner, and accepting and maybe even laughing about the misunderstanding; the CPS respond respond with hubris, anger and a formal complaint.
In my twenty-years work as a psychologist I see this all the time. Some people have personalities driven by a sense of entitlement, grievance and complaint. They are without exception unhappy people. It’s important to know that these ways of coping are present not just in individuals, but also organisations. For example, the most successful companies are those described as being a fun place to work – such as Richard Branson’s Virgin.
In contrast there are some businesses that have developed a culture of entitlement, grievance and complaints. These are perhaps more common in the public sector; organisations perhaps like the CPS or many local authority’s. This culture is perhaps most visible in ridiculously high sickness absence rates.
Does your business have a culture of good humour or grievance?
© Mike Drayton March 2013 All Rights Reserved.
