What performing comedy taught me about creating psychological safety in the training room.

What performing comedy taught me about creating psychological safety in the training room. 

I have been both delivering corporate training and performing comedy for over 20 years – and in some ways these two parallel careers have little in common. 

For example I’ve never opened a comedy gig by sharing my learning objectives for the session. I’ve also never told a joke about my mother-in-law in a leadership workshop. Actually, come to think of it, I might have done... Most of the time though, what you say in comedy is not appropriate for training and vice versa.

If we think a bit deeper however, this difference appears more superficial. Looking beyond the content, there is much that comedy and training share. This was really brought home to me last week when I was asked to be the compere, or MC, of a comedy night in Brighton. 

As the host of the evening, my job was simple: to make everyone, the audience and the acts to feel as comfortable as possible.  It was remarkably similar to being a trainer.  The night isn’t about you, it’s about creating the conditions where other people are able to make the most of the event.

The technical term for this is psychological safety. Without this neither comedy nor training can succeed.  

When a comedy routine – which raised the roof one night – dies on its feet the next, it’s almost never about the material. It’s about whether the audience feels safe enough to relax, engage and respond.

Training is just the same. A workshop that engages and inspires one group but falls flat with another is usually fine in terms of content – the issue is safety. 

When psychological safety is present in a training environment you can see it – shoulders relax, arms uncross, threat responses switch off and the capacity to learn switches on. In neurological terms, the amygdala (the brain’s threat-response alarm) is calmed, and this means, the prefrontal cortex (responsible for higher-order thinking) can do its job properly. This results in the kind of engagement that really makes training a success - curiosity, openness and a willingness to take a risk. 

So how do you achieve psychological safety? Here are three things I try to bring to both MC’ing comedy and training that create a safe environment in which everyone can thrive.

1.        Get people talking as soon as you can.

When we share opinions and experiences, and we feel listened to, we release higher levels of oxytocin. This is a hormone that’s key to building trust and rapport. So, right at the beginning of training sessions, we should ask questions and listen. Ideally these questions should focus your audience on the topic at hand. At my MCing gig this week my first question was ‘What was the last live show you went to?’. As the audience shouted out recent gigs they’d been to, it got them eager and excited to be entertained once more. 

2.        Know that you are the emotional thermostat for the room If a comedy MC walks on stage looking tense or flat, the audience mirrors it instantly. But if the MC arrives with warmth, energy and enthusiasm, the room rises to meet them. Training is no different. Human emotions are contagious. Our nervous systems subconsciously sync with the mood of whoever we perceive as the leader. When a trainer shows up relaxed, curious and happy to be there, learners feel permission to do the same - shoulders drop, engagement increases and people take more risks. 

3.        This is an obvious one but here goes…encourage laughter,

Low-stakes humour to warm the crowd up is a sure-fire way to cultivate psychological safety. Inclusive, well-judged humour can lower cortisol, boost oxytocin, and create those tiny micro-moments of connection that make people feel safe enough to learn. So, play that warm-up game that cracks people up, tell the anecdote that makes people giggle and invite others to do the same. 

I hope I’ve convinced you that comedy and training share the same foundation – psychological safety. Audiences don’t laugh when they’re braced for impact, and participants don’t learn if they’re worried about getting it wrong.