<div style='width:100%;  clear:both;'><a href="http://whatgreatbossesknow.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/HaveMoreFun.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-323" title="HaveMoreFun!" src="http://whatgreatbossesknow.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/HaveMoreFun-150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150" /></a>Great bosses understand the value of laughter in the workplace. Not humor that demeans and excludes, just good-natured fun.  Since  bosses are the ones who often raise the stress level in an organization -- asking people to do more with less, or cutting budgets, or rocking the boat with changes --they ought to pay special attention to keeping spirits up.

Not every leader has a natural gift for unleashing laughter -- or building a culture where fun is the norm.  So let me tell you about one who definitely does. His name is <a href="http://www.poynter.org/archived/about-poynter/15192/swan-song-for-swami/">Jim Naughton,</a> and he's the past president of the Poynter Institute.  He's retired now, and has just written a memoir of his professional life and his love of laughter at work.  It's called <a href="http://www.lulu.com/product/file-download/46-frogs/15261157">46 Frogs: Tales of a Serial Prankster</a>.

Several of us at Poynter have written about Jim's many pranks and merry adventures -- and what they mean to leaders.   You can see those stories <a href="http://bit.ly/hdxcRE">on the Poynter website</a>.  I hope YOU have the opportunity to work for, laugh with -- and even become -- a leader who cares about fun at work.</div><div style='width:100%;  clear:both;'><a href="http://whatgreatbossesknow.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/HaveMoreFun.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-323" title="HaveMoreFun!" src="http://whatgreatbossesknow.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/HaveMoreFun-150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150" /></a>Great bosses understand the value of laughter in the workplace. Not humor that demeans and excludes, just good-natured fun.  Since  bosses are the ones who often raise the stress level in an organization -- asking people to do more with less, or cutting budgets, or rocking the boat with changes --they ought to pay special attention to keeping spirits up.

Not every leader has a natural gift for unleashing laughter -- or building a culture where fun is the norm.  So let me tell you about one who definitely does. His name is <a href="http://www.poynter.org/archived/about-poynter/15192/swan-song-for-swami/">Jim Naughton,</a> and he's the past president of the Poynter Institute.  He's retired now, and has just written a memoir of his professional life and his love of laughter at work.  It's called <a href="http://www.lulu.com/product/file-download/46-frogs/15261157">46 Frogs: Tales of a Serial Prankster</a>.

Several of us at Poynter have written about Jim's many pranks and merry adventures -- and what they mean to leaders.   You can see those stories <a href="http://bit.ly/hdxcRE">on the Poynter website</a>.  I hope YOU have the opportunity to work for, laugh with -- and even become -- a leader who cares about fun at work.</div>{"id":322,"date":"2011-04-12T11:05:57","date_gmt":"2011-04-12T18:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/whatgreatbossesknow.com\/?p=322"},"modified":"2011-04-13T07:49:13","modified_gmt":"2011-04-13T14:49:13","slug":"laughing-with-and-even-at-the-boss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/whatgreatbossesknow.com\/?p=322","title":{"rendered":"Laughing with (and even at) the Boss"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/whatgreatbossesknow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/HaveMoreFun1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/whatgreatbossesknow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/whatgreatbossesknow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/whatgreatbossesknow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whatgreatbossesknow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whatgreatbossesknow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=322"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/whatgreatbossesknow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":361,"href":"http:\/\/whatgreatbossesknow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions\/361"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whatgreatbossesknow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/whatgreatbossesknow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whatgreatbossesknow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whatgreatbossesknow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}