Is there anything more serious confronting humanity right now than the climate crisis? 

To quote just one data point among many, many grim metrics of change, we were recently told that in 2022, the world’s oceans are now their hottest since records began in 1958. 

Although, as a surfer, I don’t like wearing a wetsuit, I’d prefer colder water than one of no coral, no ice and crumbling ecosystems.

It's a natural enough human response to turn off and move on; the old head in the sand technique

Head out of the sand and above water

The problem is that if you keep hearing grim data points like this it's a natural enough human response to turn off and move on; the old head in the sand technique.

But it’s just as human to respond negatively to bad news with a shrug as it is to respond positively to a bit of light relief.

After all, as President Eisenhower reminds us, “A sense of humour is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.”

There was once a marvellous tradition of using comedy in corporate training

Say Cleese!

I suspect British L&D practitioners of a certain age will be nodding in agreement at this point, as there was once a marvellous tradition of using comedy in corporate training. 

I’m referring, of course, to the wonderful work of John Cleese, who, fresh out of Monty Python, lent his skills to making so many lessons in business life accessible back in the 1970s and 80s (I have a particular soft spot from this great clip on how NOT to conduct meetings!).

For some reason this wonderful resource – use of humour to make serious points in company education contexts – seems to have fallen out of popularity. 

Did we decide we all needed to stop making complex ideas accessible because we needed to be taken more ‘seriously’?

Use of humour to make serious points in company education contexts ... seems to have fallen out of popularity

Taking the Cleese route

Whatever the reason, I believe it’s time to take the Cleese route again (and if you’re intrigued by his legacy, most of the movies are available through the website of a great digital video training organisation I’ve had the pleasure to work with, Video Arts in London).

Specifically, the company I work for, the training arm of insurer AXA Climate, wanted to work up a new way of reaching learners in the multinational companies we help get up to speed with practical ways to move to green. 

Going green

Our users know they can get serious Net Zero and De-carbonisation content from our brand The Climate School, but there are always delegates who don’t quite connect with what we’re trying to educate them on, first time round. 

Could lightening the tone help close that gap? Climate Brief was our answer to that.

It is so important to have useful business information about human-induced climate change

The embedded professional humourist

At the same time, we knew adding in some humour was a bit of a risk. 

Could it polarise people? Humour isn’t universal, after all.

But we believe that it is so important to have useful business information about human-induced climate change, that we decided that risk was worth it if it could raise engagement. 

We knew adding in some humour was a bit of a risk

Some serious humour

In other words, we wanted to create training content that people would want to share with their friends and embed our serious messaging and data in approachable and authentic ways.

For sure, this involved some work on our part. 

We made a ruling very early on that this is about explaining green transformation concepts in fun ways, not attacking ‘bad’ company behaviour. 

Clearly, nothing could come over as inappropriate or crossing taste lines either; getting the tone right took some calibration. 

We wanted to create training content that people would want to share with their friends

The intersection of comedy and science

To get all this right – and to actually make it funny – we had a professional comedy writer sitting in on content creation from the start of the process in the same way we always have a science specialist for our other content.

We’re also very clear that our humorous work isn’t meant to be a complete solution that will turn you into a climate expert. 

Instead, it’s more about enticing interest, and opening the door for you to want to learn more.

This is about explaining green transformation concepts in fun ways, not attacking ‘bad’ company behaviour

Use the technique that Gen Z so responds to

Early results are very promising – so much so that I think more and more training, about this and other issues, will go back to judicious (and carefully injected) use of humour. 

My evidence here includes moves in the wider climate movement of being positive about what we can actually do about the climate, rather than the constant doom-mongering (check these great clips out for examples). 

Our humorous work isn’t meant to be a complete solution that will turn you into a climate expert

Could your organisation benefit from humour?

And, let’s face it, things like TikTok work so well because humour and parody is just so important to all of us. 

So, my advice is, go back to Mr Cleese, check out the current generation’s use of humour in content and see if your organisation would benefit from this much-underused L&D tool.

If you enjoyed this, read: What role can L&D play in the climate emergency?