How To Use Humour And Make Your Audience Laugh
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Introduction: Serious vs. Fun Is a False Choice
A supervisor walks in. Two colleagues are laughing. I don't pay you to have fun. If that sounds familiar, you've already encountered the outdated belief that professionalism and humour are opposites. In his Present to Succeed session, Peter Hajdu dismantles that assumption. Humour isn't the enemy of good communication — used well, it's one of its most powerful tools.
Why Humour Works: The Science
When you make people laugh, three things happen. Oxytocin creates a sense of belonging — your audience feels connected to you, and connected people are more open to your message. Dopamine makes people feel good and, crucially, triggers memory. Put something funny just before your most important point, and your audience is far more likely to remember it. And then there's relaxation — something Peter experienced first-hand when delivering a speech in Mandarin Chinese six years out of practice. One self-deprecating line about how impossible Chinese is to learn changed the energy in the room entirely. Humour didn't just entertain the audience. It rescued the speaker.
The Four Humour Styles
Aggressive humour targets others. It might get a laugh, but it risks alienating everyone in the room. Don't use it on stage — ever.
Self-defeating humour targets yourself. Used carefully, it closes the gap between speaker and audience. The key, as Malala demonstrated in her Nobel Prize speech, is to make fun of something unrelated to your expertise — vulnerability without undermining credibility.
Self-enhancing humour finds the funny in hardship. Amy Purdy, who lost her legs to meningitis, joked that she could finally be as tall or as short as she wanted. Dark subject, light touch.
Affiliated humour is the safest type — pointing out something funny in the shared, here-and-now experience without targeting anyone. A mic malfunction. A moment everyone just witnessed. Nobody gets hurt, and everybody smiles.
Practical Tools: How to Find and Use the Funny
Don't try to become a comedian. Don't open with a joke. Instead, look for genuine funny moments from your own life — they're specific, real, and far more likely to land. Keep a story bank if you can. Research shows 70% of the times we laugh are spontaneous, which means the funny is already happening around you. You just need to start noticing it.
Three techniques worth mastering:
Analogy — compare two things to make a point. Ralph Rangnick on pressing in football: a little bit of pressing is like a little bit of pregnant. You either press or you don't.
Exaggeration — overstate something for effect. Short, sharp, and instantly readable as playful.
Rule of Three — set up two expected elements, then deliver a third that breaks the pattern. A, B... G. The gap between what the audience anticipates and what they hear is where laughter lives.
Q&A Highlights
On how much is too much: there's no fixed percentage — stay slightly above the average for the room and build gradually. On what to do when it falls flat: own it, or quietly move on. For high-stakes presentations, do test runs first. On online meetings with cameras off: wait a beat after the funny part, assume some people are smiling, and keep going.
Final Thoughts: Find the Funny
The funny is already there — in your past week, your last project, your most recent awkward moment. Humour isn't something you manufacture. It's something you notice, capture, and bring into the room. Do that, and you won't just get laughs. You'll be connected, memorable, and relaxed. Which is exactly how you want to feel when you present.
Join the Conversation
Which of the four humour styles do you find easiest to use — and which do you struggle with most? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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