The president-elect of the American College of Surgeons, Dr. Lazar Greenfield, has announced his resignation after a firestorm of criticism after he published a column suggesting semen as a mood-enhancer for women. Seriously.
The publication, Surgery News, has pulled the publication from its online archives. But you can find the editorial in its entirety here (in the interest of “judge for yourself.”).
Dr. Greenfield broke the first rule of communications in a professional environment – no jokes. In all our presentation skills coaching and media training sessions, we remind our clients that “warming up an audience” with a joke is ill-advised at best, and a catastrophe at worst.
This doesn’t mean, of course, we must be humorless. But we must be very careful to understand our audience and the situation very clearly before venturing into what Dr. Greenfield characterized as “light-hearted” comments.
Having a sense of humor and telling a joke are dramatically different things. Stand-up comedian is a painstakingly difficult thing to do well, even for the professionals. Our general recommendation is not to give up your day job.
Having humor, however, can engage an audience. Tell a personal anecdote. Use a humorous quote. Whatever you decide to do, make sure it follows these three rules:
- it’s brief
- it’s relevant to the topic of your presentation and your audience
- when in doubt leave it out
Remember, no one ever had to resign from preventing a tasteless article from running in a professional journal.