One way to become funnier, more charming, more influential, is to get a title of some kind. The downside of this is that however good a leader you are or however big the title is, hearing the unadulterated truth from your subordinates is a distant dream.
Lesson 1
General Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. led the American military in their invasion of Iraq in 1990 and was the mastermind behind the successful Operation Desert Storm which helped liberate Kuwait from the clutches of Saddam Hussein. After his role in the Iraq war, his leadership abilities have been written about extensively and he is regarded as one of the greatest Generals to have served in the military.
At the same time, General Schwarzkopf was also human. In his autobiography titled It doesn’t take a hero, he wrote about how he was terrible at telling jokes. He forgot stuff, his timing was awry, got his punchlines all wrong. Basically, someone very bad at telling jokes.
Then something changes.
The moment he becomes a General, everyone begins to laugh at his jokes. It isn’t as if his style of telling improved dramatically after he became General. Rather, once he became a general, people were in some way forced to laugh at his jokes — however bad they were or however terrible their delivery.
Lesson 2
Jerry Seinfeld is one of the greatest comedians to ever live. After deciding to end the series Seinfeld, one of the most profitable and popular comedy shows in the history of television, he has done stand-up, directed, made guest appearances and is the creator and host of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.
Jerry Seinfeld told the aspiring comedian to get a calendar and a marker. For every day that he wrote, he was to mark an X on that day. It looks something like this:
Seinfeld urged the young comedian not to break the chain, that is, keep at it every day to get better and better.
One of the standout qualities of the series Seinfeld was the consistency of the quality of humor. There were no massive troughs where the quality drastically dipped. Many were aghast when Jerry Seinfeld decided to end the show after 9 seasons but he was sure it had run its course and wanted to end it on a high.
When you look at any great performer, you will realize that they never stop trying to get better. In fact, they work harder once they are famous to sustain that same level of excellence. In this wonderful speech (watch from 1.13), Harsha Bhogle speaks of how an advertising biggie was asked why he didn’t make a presentation to his juniors. The biggie, in his defense, said that he was very senior and didn’t have to prove himself to anyone. In other words, he was resorting to his title doing all the talking instead of himself doing it.
One way to become funnier, more charming, more influential, is to get a title of some kind. The downside of this is that however good a leader you are or however big the title is, hearing the unadulterated truth from your subordinates is a distant dream. We have all worked under leaders and bosses that we genuinely respected and whose advice we sought even after we no longer worked under them. To earn that kind of respect is hard for anyone, including ourselves. We have also dealt with people who we were forced to listen to only because they had a title and who we didn’t consider as someone who helped us raise our game.
Using only a title or a position to exert influence or make someone laugh is temporary.
On the other hand, getting better constantly and somewhere along the way helping others get better is hard work, but ultimately the better option.
