Laugh out Loud: A User’s Guide to Workplace Humor

“Laugh Out Loud should be of enormous value to any leader who accepts the challenge of building and maintaining a superb work place that is a joy to be part of and that delivers superlative results."


—Tom Peters, international consultant and author of In Search of Excellence (1982), The Excellence Dividend (2018), and many other management best-sellers.


Humor is part and parcel of every workplace. However, while humor usually demonstrates and fosters a united, happy workforce, it can at times be damaging and divisive. This book is the first-ever authoritative work on the use and management of humor at work -  a practical guide for humorists, jokers, ‘butts’ and victims of humor, fans, observers, and most of all the managers who have to ‘set the tone’ and encourage, control and manage humor.

The authors bring together long experience and state-of-the art research on the topic. The book covers  how humor works, humor cultures, forms of workplace humor, humor rituals, digital humor, workplace jokers, ‘political correctness’ about humor, and both the ‘bright’ and ‘dark’  sides of humor .

With over 60 ‘real life’ illustrative stories, a self-completion humor questionnaire and end-of-chapter ‘takeaways’ advocating ‘best practice’, the book is a fun, how-to-do-it guide that will both inform and entertain.

Barbara Plester, Senior Lecturer in the University of Auckland Business School, is a New Zealander who has researched workplace humor and fun for the last 14 years, publishing her research in many journal articles and in her academic book, The Complexity of Workplace Humour (2016). Barbara says that humor is endemic to both her zany family life and her award-winning teaching. 

Kerr Inkson, Emeritus Professor in the University of Auckland Business School, is a Scottish-born New Zealander whose 50+-year research career included work on motivation, careers and cross-cultural management. Now retired, his main pursuits are writing, amateur drama and golf. Among his favourite humor is that of his compatriot, the incomparable Billy Connolly.