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💥 Ignite your company culture with the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast!
We bring together incredible leaders, trailblazing entrepreneurs, and expert visionaries to share the secrets to their success, explore real-world challenges, and reveal what it truly takes to lead with energy, passion, and purpose as a 🌟VIBRANT🌟 Leader.
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[00:00:00] Announcer: This is the Build A Vibrant Culture Podcast, your source for the strategies, systems, and smarts you need to turn possibility into purpose. Every week we dive into dynamic conversations as our host, Nicole Greer, interviews leadership and business experts. They're here to shed light on practical solutions to the challenges of personal and professional development. Now, here's your host, a professional speaker, coach and consultant, Nicole Greer.
[00:00:30] Nicole Greer: Welcome everybody to the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer and they call me the Vibrant Coach. And I have another, I know I always say this, but he is amazing. I'm going to tell you all about Robb Patton today. So here is his bio. He is soaring through the skies as a professional pilot and occasionally landing jokes with his comedic comments and videos. Gemini and Virgo Tendencies. He wrote _The Plane That Prolly Could_. Okay. Probably P-R-O-L-L-Y, right? So I love that. And co-founded Highbrow Safety Werks, advocating for psychological safety because every flight deserves a good laugh. So Robb, I'm so glad you're here 'cause you're doing something so cool, building vibrant cultures with humor inside of them. I'm so glad you're here.
[00:01:15] Robb Patton: Yeah. Thanks for having me. I love your work.
[00:01:18] Nicole Greer: Oh, you're very sweet. Yeah. And Robb has a lovely daughter who I've had the privilege of meeting and hanging out with for several times, all day long in training sessions. And she's a doll baby. And you know what they say? Oh, I met her Daddy. That's where she gets it from. And so, she's a doll. I love her so much.
[00:01:35] Robb Patton: Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm pretty proud of her for sure.
[00:01:38] Nicole Greer: Yeah, and she's the one that told me all of the amazing work that you're doing. So, first of all, tell us a little bit about your company and what you're doing. It's really cool.
[00:01:47] Robb Patton: Yeah, so, basically I've been a commercial pilot for 20 whatever years now, and I've done some standup comedy through the years. I, I love making people laugh. So basically what happened about three years ago is we created a video for our internal flight department, and that kind of got out and people loved it. It was called Ice, Ice Maybe. And basically, it was ice procedures for a particular aircraft. And we used Ice, Ice, Baby as a parody, so it flourished into where it is now. A lot of fun.
[00:02:25] Nicole Greer: Yeah, so what he's doing is he is taking these songs and he's got full on videos. I mean, costumes, set, direction. The one video I watched, there was a choir in the video, I mean, it was a choir of five or six. I don't know. I didn't count. But I mean, you're not just making a video with your iPhone you're putting together very high quality learning and development materials for people so that they can, you know, fly these planes and keep us all safe in the air. Yes?
[00:02:54] Robb Patton: Yeah. Yeah. So what we learned was having an earworm, for us, really helped and have the people singing whatever the parameters are or whatever in the back. We've gone through training. We go through training every six months, and then there's online training and all sorts. So, you don't normally associate humor or levity with aviation at all, so it's kind of fun to mix the two.
[00:03:20] Nicole Greer: Absolutely. Yeah. And you know, I can think of other industries that are out there where we feel like we can't be funny with accounting or we couldn't be funny with engineering or something like that. But the videos that you do are absolutely hilarious and fantastic. So I think that a big part of building a vibrant culture is people are having fun and they're, and we all know that laughter is so good for your soul and also physically good for you, right? It releases all sorts of good neuropeptides as you're laughing and smiling. So, I want to ask you a little bit about the humor side. First of all, how'd you get into standup? How'd you do that?
[00:03:58] Robb Patton: That started a long time ago. So it started as a kid. I enjoy making people laugh. I enjoy really brightening someone's day who wasn't planning on it happening. Then, you know, you go down the aviation road and I was pretty flavorful. I did fly for the airlines for a bit before moving back to business aviation, and I enjoyed the passenger announcements. Those were a blast in getting the people's feedback. But yeah, that started I would say in elementary and it kind of never went away. And I would say it's kind of, my foot is on the gas with that now, so.
[00:04:33] Nicole Greer: That's fantastic.
[00:04:34] And the name of your learning platform, share that with us.
[00:04:37] Robb Patton: It's highbrowsafety.com. And we thought, you know, Highbrow, like it's intelligent humor around a pretty serious, the nuclear industry, the medical industry, engineers, manufacturing, all of it, there's room for levity and learning in all those industries for sure.
[00:04:54] Nicole Greer: That's right. That's right. Okay. So humor, we've determined that it's very important to build a vibrant culture. And Robb, I think you're really doing something that's cutting edge. I mean, I don't want you to get a big head or anything, but I mean, I think you're like doing something that really, in learning and development, we need to be thinking about like how do we actually bake in the humor instead of like finding a funny facilitator, you know, or a trainer that's got a sense of humor, like you're baking it in, right? So it's super intentional.
[00:05:24] Robb Patton: Yeah, it's very intentional. I think _Humor__, Seriously_ is a book that was written and I'm sure you've read it, but it's a great book and it goes into the science and they've had a TED talk as well. It goes into the science of laughter and the oxytocin and whatnot. We did Legos, for instance, little Lego mini figs, and we outfitted them according to their personalities and so forth. And we were planning on putting those in the back only for the flight crews and so on to see. The owners of the company asked for it to be put in the lobby where everyone can see it. And so that was just another nod to how humor, because they're all very, I'm not the tallest person and I am the chief pilot. Yeah. So, this, I'm in a booster seat right now, actually from Wendy's, but
[00:06:15] Nicole Greer: I'm standing up, but you can't tell.
[00:06:20] Robb Patton: So someone went into the back of the shadow box. And took the normal sized legs off on me and put little kid legs.
[00:06:28] So that's the culture we have in the department. Somebody's comfortable enough to go in and take their boss' legs and, which is great. It's been so much fun to watch the evolution of that.
[00:06:39] Nicole Greer: That's so good. And, and you know, I think the other thing, when you mentioned Legos, I got this other word in my brain other than humor, which was this, this idea of just being playful.
[00:06:49] Robb Patton: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:49] Nicole Greer: Because if you're playful, you'll end up laughing. You know what I mean? Like, it might not be funny to begin, but if you, if you play right, so this guy goes back and he changes the legs out and it's like, that's hilarious. And now we're laughing, right? Yeah. So I'll tell you another quick story, Robb. So, where Kristen works at Blum, there was a the Human Resource Department. Now imagine. I love my Human Resource people. The Human Resource Department is hilarious there, and they have so much fun. So, one of the gals kept getting these like little ducks, like she'd open up her desk drawer, there'd be this duck in her drawer. She's like, where are these ducks coming from? Then she had her car locked. She goes out to her car and there's a duck on the seat of her car. And then like, she went to training. One day she opened up her purse and like inside where you keep your lipstick if you're a female, there was a duck in there. And so she's like, what's going on? You know, so it was driving her crazy and it was one of her coworkers that she's worked with for forever. But like, it was just playful, you know? So there's things you can do. There's things you can do. All right. So I, I want to ask you this: humor, they say, is the shortest distance between two people. Have you seen humor break down some barriers in workplace learning or just barriers in the, in the culture?
[00:08:04] Robb Patton: Yeah, so I'll just use the airlines for instance. When you show up on the property, when you show up in the aircraft, that's the first time in, in a lot of cases that you met that person. So you've never met them before. You guys are kind of like robots in the airplane, you know, what he's going to do or she, and, you know, vice versa. I always try to open that relationship up with a little bit of levity to kind of like break down the barriers, like you said, or the guard or, or whatever that is.
[00:08:32] Nicole Greer: That's good way to
[00:08:32] Robb Patton: We tend to. Yeah, so when you're walking through the terminal and you, you know, you have the suit on, there's a certain expectation from everyone in the terminal, but when you go down the jet way and it's just the two of you or whatever, that's always the best way for me that I've found to open that relationship up and, and start talking.
[00:08:51] That also helps the high pressure situations. If they know where your default is, like, Hey, I'm kind of easy going and laid back and approachable and whatnot, all the things that levity helps other people understand about you.
[00:09:06] Nicole Greer: That's good. And you know, I fly a lot and I watch these flight attendants and these pilots and they are. They're very serious. They're looking like a million bucks, they got their suits on.
[00:09:14] Robb Patton: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
[00:09:17] Nicole Greer: Oftentimes I'm lucky enough to sit towards the front of the plane and you know, the ones that are enjoying it make me enjoy it.
[00:09:26] Robb Patton: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:09:28] Nicole Greer: ones that don't have a sense of humor, who are just like, please fasten your seatbelt. Put away your tray table.
[00:09:32] trade table. I'm like, Oh, this is going to be a bad flight. You know, because if you could just put that good energy out there, just lifts the whole thing. We're going to have a better flight, right? People are going to do
[00:09:42] Robb Patton: Yeah, it's very contagious. And, and if you're having a four day trip with the same crew that's like six or eight people that you're with the whole time, and if you have that demeanor, you just, to your point, you can lift the whole spirit of the crew and that four day turns into like something that's a lot of fun when it could be arduous, you know?
[00:10:02] Nicole Greer: Absolutely. And you know, even if you're not flying around, you know, four days in retail together, four days in the restaurant together, four, it doesn't matter.
[00:10:10] Robb Patton: Yeah. Doesn't matter. Mm-hmm.
[00:10:12] Nicole Greer: All right. So what's a moment when using humor in a training session completely shifted the energy or opened people up? You know, sometimes I go into trainings, Robb and I got people like this.
[00:10:24] Robb Patton: Oh.
[00:10:25] Nicole Greer: Got their arms crossed if you're listening. Got my arms crossed and a bad look on my face. Yeah. How, how does humor switch all that?
[00:10:32] Robb Patton: Well, I mean, in my standup you know, the emotional intelligence comes along where you're reading the room and you see if the room's tight or not, all the things that you do speaking professionally. Last November I had a room full of pilots and we aren't known for being the most, you know, loose and laid back folks. So I start most of them off with. My name's Robb. I'm a Gemini with Virgo Tendencies. So I delay like 15 seconds and then people are like, oh my God, that was a joke. That was so funny. You know, it was a tight room and it was more like the first statement was a misdirection for them. They weren't planning on any of that, so we were able to have some fun. After that, it loosened the whole room up because now you can ask the question that maybe you wouldn't have asked earlier, and I had did get some ask some questions at the end, but I was also a simulator instructor. So during that period, the people would be upfront a little nervous, and I would start off with whatever the most preposterous thing you can imagine is, and break the ice immediately and calm them down. So it helps in a lot of different ways, I think. To your point about sales or, or whatever. I think just starting off, whatever the event is, whether it's just a day at work with a little bit of levity, changes the whole day.
[00:11:57] Nicole Greer: Yeah, and I think again people come with a preconceived idea. And here's the thing about, I bet this is true. You confirm or deny. In the airplane biz, I bet you there's a lot of the, this thing I call mandatory training.
[00:12:10] Robb Patton: Oh, just a little.
[00:12:12] Nicole Greer: Just a little. Yeah. And sometimes the stuff I teach is mandatory training, which I abhor the word mandatory, but but like when people come in, they've got that look on their face for the mandatory training that they're going to. And you can do what Robb just said. Did you hear what he said everybody? He's like, just throw out something absolutely off the wall.
[00:12:34] Um, and Do it from the get go, and then people are like, this day is not going to be as awful as I thought it was going to be.
[00:12:40] Robb Patton: Yeah, yeah. That is a great idea.
[00:12:43] Nicole Greer: Yeah. So it reduces the stress too, I think. All right. So some leaders might be listening to this, some of my HR peeps might be listening to this, and they're like, Nicole, don't you think that makes you look silly? Less professional?
[00:12:58] Robb Patton: Hmm.
[00:12:58] Nicole Greer: To be cracking jokes all the time. So what do you think the balance is between like, you have to really de-ice the plane and ice, ice baby. Like what... What's the fine line there?
[00:13:07] Robb Patton: Yeah. Yeah. So the fine line is, first of all, if the people don't know how to read you. Or you have no history with the people, that makes it a little more difficult, right? So with my role in leadership at my department. I'm chief pilot, and so there's a certain level of professionalism and whatever that it takes to get here. I think, kind of reiterating what _Humor, Seriously_ said, the emotional intelligence comes into play. Like from an HR perspective, you know your room and you know what would be funny to those folks. It can be something way down in the weeds if you have a room full of accountants and you know, whatever that is specific to those people. But I think just reading the room is important and coming out with something, even if it's small, because realistically, the people that are sitting in the room with the mandatory training situation are expecting zero humor.
[00:14:07] So if you come out with 1% humor, it's a win for them. You know, it's going to be a good day. Just like you said, I think reading the room is important though.
[00:14:17] Nicole Greer: Yeah. I love the topic of emotional intelligence. So let's go down that bunny trail since you brought it up for everybody listening. You know, Daniel Goleman, I think it was 2012. Don't quote me everybody. Somebody correct me, put it in the notes. But anyways, he wrote this book, Emotional Intelligence. He was a reporter. He actually was interviewing some scientists that were looking at, can you have emotional intelligence? And then he wrote the book. But in there he talks about like, there's four buckets, right? So the first bucket is self-awareness. And so I think the first thing about being funny is, Robb, do you think most people can be funny if they try? What do you think?
[00:14:54] Robb Patton: Oh, I think everybody's funny. You know, like everything's subjective except for death. So you are funny.
[00:15:01] Nicole Greer: not funny.
[00:15:03] Robb Patton: That's not funny. So, I think your funny may not match as somebody else's funny or your sense of humor is all over the place. I think everybody can be funny, even if it's nothing but a look like The Office or whatever. Just a deadpan stare or a piece of silence during, you know, a presentation would come across as funny. I think it's easier, it's less daunting than a lot of people view it as.
[00:15:31] Nicole Greer: Yeah, I think funny is like a muscle you can build.
[00:15:36] Robb Patton: Agreed.
[00:15:37] Nicole Greer: And in fact I think it's kinda like, you know, you've told a few million jokes in your life and if somebody laughs it's almost like you get funnier, like your funny turns on or something. Like you get funnier and funnier as it goes. But like if your first joke's not funny, it kind shrivels up and dies.
[00:15:54] Robb Patton: It does, it does. And there's a little bit of like there's a little bit of rudimentary humor like the power of three. Two things that are similar and then the third thing you say is a misdirection totally. And that's a easy one to do. And another one is a callback where you say Gemini with Virgo tendencies. And then you use that two or three more times in your presentation and people are like, oh, they said it again. You know, so there's some easy ways if you're uncomfortable with using humor, that you could do
[00:16:22] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And so I just remembered I have this on my bookshelf. Y'all should come to my office. I have the best office, but I, I got this book a long time ago. Do it yourself funny. I'm going to get this thing back out. 'cause when you said the three thing, I was like, oh yeah. And speaking of 2012, this thing's from 2012.
[00:16:40] So it's _Do It Yourself Funny_. It's so fantastic. George Campbell, Tim Gard and Mark Mayfield. Hilarious. I'm going to get that out. Put that on the list of things to do. Yeah, so I, I think you can up your funny game. So emotional intelligence, there's self-awareness and then there's self-management. Like, can I try to be funny? I could try. And then the social awareness that I think is what you're talking about. Like you're reading the room, you know. These people are not having a good day. I should try to raise the vibration.
[00:17:10] Robb Patton: Yeah. So in a comedy show is not unlike doing a talk in your department wherever you work. It's not unlike that at all. Before I went on stage, if there were any large groups, I would know what those groups were, in the early show and the late show. So you have some idea of who you're speaking to and you could change your joke accordingly, or whatever that is. So same thing with the presentations from HR, the mandatory training, no different.
[00:17:37] Nicole Greer: Yeah. So good. So good. Okay. So in your view, how does humor contribute to psychological safety in a team or learning environment? 'Cause you're all about the psychological safety.
[00:17:49] Robb Patton: I am all about the psychological safety.
[00:17:50] safety I'm
[00:17:51] Nicole Greer: define it 'cause we're all throwing it around, but
[00:17:54] Robb Patton: Yeah, we are. We are. So psychological safety is not everybody's happy all the time. It's not that. It is the ability for you to voice your opinions and concerns that would be a matter in the company's success. It's being able to bring things like that up. That's what psychological safety is. So imagine going into a meeting where you didn't feel like you could say anything. And the gentleman speaking is speaking off of a teleprompter or a script or whatnot. It feels very tight. There's no room for questions or anything like that, versus walking into a room where the first thing you hear is a joke. Now you're in the meeting thinking, okay, well, they just joked. So this process that I think is really hurting the company. I feel more comfortable bringing that up just because of their demeanor.
[00:18:58] So that's how I think humor can help or just levity in general can, can help psychological safety. Anytime you can make the people feel more comfortable in speaking, no matter what that is. And levity is something you could do like real easy and quick. And like you said, just kind of open the whole thing up from the beginning.
[00:19:19] Nicole Greer: Yeah, so, I have a husband that is a dad joke person and he has this personality where he's pretty even keeled like this which makes the dad joke actually better. Because he's not trying to deliver the dad joke. He's just putting it out there, you know? And I've seen people that have like the dad joke calendar where you get one a day. And I think it's almost that simple Robb. And I think too, you become endearing to your team. They're like, do you have a new dad joke? And you're like, yes, I do. I, yes I do. I memorized the one off my calendar this morning, you know, and then people are like, oh my God, I love this
[00:20:00] Robb Patton: yeah,
[00:20:01] Nicole Greer: And so that's the guy, that's the leader -or it could be a female, of course- who I'm like, I have a problem with the new project.
[00:20:09] Robb Patton: Yeah. Yeah. And even with one-on-ones. Psychological safety isn't necessarily a big group in the context of like a big meeting and whatever.
[00:20:18] Nicole Greer: Right, the staff meeting.
[00:20:19] Robb Patton: It's one, yeah, it's one-on-ones. When you do have a problem with that project and you're able to walk in and your direct report just opened a big meeting with a joke, and you're like, okay, and they knew you were authentic with that joke. You know, you were really like, not just robotic or, Hey, I need to check the joke box. You know, and I think that goes really far throughout the organization.
[00:20:43] Nicole Greer: Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah. So I just want to review real quickly, folks. So humor, you can build it.
[00:20:49] Robb Patton: Mm-hmm.
[00:20:49] Nicole Greer: Number two, it's part, I think it's actually, Goleman missed the boat. Should we call him and tell him he has to write another book? Like how humor
[00:20:57] Robb Patton: Yeah.
[00:20:57] Nicole Greer: Actually makes people smarter in their emotional intelligence. I think that's part of it. And then you don't have to be a standup comedian like Robb Patton to do this. You just need to try a little bit.
[00:21:10] Robb Patton: Yeah. Yeah. I think having the rudimentary-like humor, seriously, just trying it and doing a little bit of research. Everybody knows something funny at their company, that's funny just to their people. So the comedic part is easy.
[00:21:26] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Oh, that's so true. Yeah. Like we know all the inside jokes
[00:21:31] Robb Patton: Yes.
[00:21:32] Nicole Greer: if one comes up, you should, oh, that's an inside joke. I should write that down and use it as a callback or something.
[00:21:38] Robb Patton: Yeah. Anything like that, because there's all these little nuances with every little industry or whatever you do that is definitely funny to everyone and misdirections are easy in the same token. It's not that hard.
[00:21:52] Nicole Greer: And, the other thing too is that there's like classic mistakes. So I'm thinking about comedians that are physical and like, they slip on the banana peel and they fall down and they run into things and drop things and whatever. You know, that's all about like, humans are terribly flawed. And you know, like we're just awful. But if we can laugh at ourselves, it's huge. And I think there are some common mistakes in every industry as well. And in your learning and development, you know, you could do it, Robb's doing it. You could be like, okay, we're going to do a ridiculous, humorous thing about this. 'Cause people do this and they shouldn't be doing it.
[00:22:31] Robb Patton: Yeah.
[00:22:31] Nicole Greer: Let's let's make a video and make it hilarious.
[00:22:34] Robb Patton: Yeah. And that's so easy to do. You bring up something very good too, and if the humor, especially if you're in leadership, I think if it can include you, then people see, oh, they, they're making fun of themselves so they don't think too much or whatever. So that's a very important thing you bring up.
[00:22:54] And yeah, everybody knows something that shouldn't be done at work. It could be the break room, it could be as simple as somebody's lunchbox in the break room and they put it in this one place every time, or a myriad of different things that you could easily do, you know, a callback on or whatever that is.
[00:23:14] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And you know, just like people microwaving something and blowing it up in the microwave, now that you've got me on the break room or, you know, people taking other people's sandwiches, I mean, there's, there's like a hundred things you could do about the break room. That's so good.
[00:23:29] Robb Patton: Well, we did one where, okay, if you're working on an airplane and you're working on a part, the really important thing is not to be interrupted, whether that is with a phone or whatever in the middle of the task. So we did a video where this guy was dreaming about lunch and he, in order to hurry up and go to lunch, he put chewing gum on this part of the airplane just to get it done. And then he left and walked off to the break room. So the whole video is like 30 seconds, but we use it as a training video internally. Like, don't think about your lunch. You know, like focus on the task and whatever. But it was something real, like he's hungry and you know, something as easy as that. We shot it with a phone and everybody laughed a lot at it and got something out of it at the end.
[00:24:19] Nicole Greer: Yeah. That's so good. I love that.
[00:24:22] Announcer: Are you ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with their strategies, systems, and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy, and results. Your organization will get lit from within! Email her at nicole@vibrantculture.com and be sure to check out Nicole's TEDx talk at vibrantculture.com.
[00:24:50] Nicole Greer: Okay. And, you know, I don't know if it's still out there, I'm going to Google it later, but there, there was this burrito place up in the northeast called Boloco, and they, Robb, they made these videos and it was like, this is how you don't greet the customer. And so they did this ridiculous over the top thing, and it was just these young people that work at Boloco and then they're like, and this is the right way, you know? They did this whole juxtaposition. I think that's along the lines of what you're doing. So think about how you could just, you know, like he said with the phone, get this done. So good.
[00:25:29] All right, you kind of already answered this question, but maybe you could give us a couple more examples. Give us an example of how humor has reinforced a key learning concept so that it sticks. So you gave us the one with the gum, like, focus, focus on what you're doing. What other key learning concepts have you nailed because you've done this.
[00:25:50] Robb Patton: So, Ice Ice maybe was one of them. So obviously airplanes have a lot of numbers and weights and so many parameters. You need to have them memorized, but they become important again when icing comes back and you can ice at any altitude even during the summer.
[00:26:06] So during the winter, there is this one number on a throttle setting on a particular airplane. Very specific. We've had people reach out to us and go, the first thing that happened when we got the ice alert in the airplane was 70% in the descent, which is a lyric out of that song. So they remembered the power number instantly, and
[00:26:32] Nicole Greer: Oh, that's so good.
[00:26:35] Robb Patton: That's a win for us.
[00:26:37] Nicole Greer: Oh God. And you know that, that is a thing like singing and songs. There's something about the notes and the music and the eight beats that helps us memorize things. Okay. I love that. So if you have a key word, a key number, you could put it into something so that people, people can get it memorized. That's fantastic. Okay. So are you the funniest one at work or there are other funny people there?
[00:27:03] Robb Patton: Oh, no, there's other funny people. There's, there's other funny people. We have guy, uh, we were going to shoot that video, Ice Ice Maybe. And I gave him a flatbill hat, and a tank top, things he would never wear on a normal basis. So since then, I've had him in a cowboy hat and a mustache.
[00:27:21] Nicole Greer: Oh I saw that one. You showed me that one. You sent me that link.
[00:27:23] Robb Patton: He's Wyatt. He is a serious dude. And, but now he's seeing the playfulness and we're having a great time with all these things. And he has taken on the persona of Wyatt Wing It, which is like, I kick the tires, I don't need regulations, kind of guy. And it's, yeah, he is definitely hilarious. I don't write script for him anymore. I just let him talk.
[00:27:46] Nicole Greer: Oh, wow. Don't miss that everybody. You could release the inner comedian in your C-suite. That's so exciting. That's so good. That's so good. Yeah.
[00:27:57] All right. So, you know, how do you, how did you get him going down that road? How do you get a leader to. Take on humor authentically you, you just did it. But how'd you introduce this to him? Because I, maybe some of my leaders are like, I'm hilarious. But that guy, I don't think we could ever get him. So how do you introduce this to the other naysayers?
[00:28:18] Robb Patton: Yeah. I think what happens is they have fun doing it. And when they have fun writing the things and they're like, oh yeah, this thing happens. And you can write that. Then you see people come on board like, what is the idea? Like, oh, we could use chewing gum and put it on the landing gear. That's a great idea. So let's write that. And we start writing it and before you know it, your group cohesively starts coming together. And there's a ton of ideas. The more that you include all these ideas, because everybody has a certain sense of humor and you can really see it come into play there. If you're in a leadership position, as you see this come together, you're really creating psychological safety at the same time, even before you shot anything.
[00:29:07] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And I was just thinking about, you know, when you have a big group together, like a family reunion, a cookout in your cul-de-sac, the party after work or whatever, and one person's getting two or three people going.
[00:29:20] Robb Patton: Yeah.
[00:29:21] Nicole Greer: Then before you know it, everybody's like, what are they laughing at?
[00:29:25] Robb Patton: Yeah. Yes, that is true. It's contagious. It really is contagious. To hear the nicknames, things like that. We have all the lockers in the aviation department have people's nicknames that we've given them. You can't have your own, you have to be given a nickname.
[00:29:42] Nicole Greer: Oh, and that's and probably like an honor, right?
[00:29:44] Robb Patton: It is, well, sometimes. Sometimes you do something silly...
[00:29:47] Nicole Greer: Gotta think about it first.
[00:29:49] Robb Patton: And you, yeah, and you get a nickname and it may not be what you want, but you did something to get the nickname. So that also adds to the levity in the department, for sure.
[00:30:00] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Yeah. And when you're saying that, you know, like we're giving it to you and you might, your ego might pop up and be like, Hey!
[00:30:07] Robb Patton: Yeah.
[00:30:09] Nicole Greer: That's what we need. We need to slay these egos.
[00:30:11] Robb Patton: Well, the ego is when we are giving you a nickname, your frame of reference absolutely could be like, Hey-- like there's one guy that's almost 30 that looks like he's 14.
[00:30:24] Nicole Greer: Bless his heart.
[00:30:24] Robb Patton: So
[00:30:24] Nicole Greer: his
[00:30:24] Robb Patton: nickname is the kid, and he will never not have that nickname. He looks 12. So when we get off the airplane, people are like, oh my God, where's his permission slip? Because he should be in ninth grade.
[00:30:36] Nicole Greer: That's right. Does does the flight attendant know he's here by himself?
[00:30:40] Robb Patton: Can you see over the dash? Because you know, with both of us fly, we're both five foot, so you can see either one when we pull up.
[00:30:46] Nicole Greer: Oh no.
[00:30:48] Robb Patton: So anyway it's really a term of endearment that we've gone behind you and like, Hey, you know, we've given you this nickname. Now you have a plaque on your locker that has your nickname. And yeah. So it it's a frame of reference thing. Yeah. You could get your ego in the way, but kind of like the Radical Candor thing, like, the reason we're doing this is because we care about you personally at this point, and that's how you ended up with a nickname and a crazy looking mini fig.
[00:31:14] Nicole Greer: That's so good. Okay, so you just threw out this, this little thing called radical candor. So for everybody listening, let's just go there for a hot second. So there's a, we gotta explain all these things. 'Cause here's the thing. I say this almost on every podcast. Leaders read. If you want to be good at, at your work, you need to read stuff. So anyway, there's this book called Radical Candor. It's by Kim Scott, and she has this super simple Y-axis, X-axis. That's hard to say, X axis model about, you know, you have to be candorous with people, so you got to, you, but to be candorous, it doesn't mean to be ugly. It means that you're going to care deeply, you're going to enough to say something. But you're going to directly, so it's a really beautiful model. So go watch a video on YouTube. Just put Kim Scott and several things will pop up.
[00:32:04] Robb Patton: Yeah. It's when people understand that. If you could get your whole organization to read that, it would be phenomenal. Because whenever a comment is made, it's coming from that place. Like having 360 reviews or Clifton Strengths, whatever it is. All the things, and especially one-on-ones, like I've had to do this recently, very hard conversation. Start off with, I care about you and I want you to succeed, which is why I'm saying this. And there's care behind it, but once you do that enough, any organization's bought into that, you don't even have to say that
[00:32:43] Nicole Greer: That's.
[00:32:44] Robb Patton: it comes out.
[00:32:45] Nicole Greer: That's right. And that's the emotional intelligence. So I don't think we mentioned the fourth bucket. So there's self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and then there's relationship management. You do something consistently enough with your team, exercise humor, train them. 'Cause don't miss that everybody too, 'cause we are talking about being very serious about training. You may not be putting planes in the air. You may just be serving food or creating a product in manufacturing, but like it's, the safety thing is super duper important. So we have to train, train, train, train, and then bring the emotional intelligence and the radical candor. Aren't you glad Robb's here, everybody?
[00:33:25] Robb Patton: And I think, you know, some of the meetings I've had. It's like, you know where I'm at statistically, which, you know, who really knows, but I've said I've got 8,700 days. Back to your "read" remark. I've got 8,700 days left statistically, you know, whatever on that. So how am I going to spend that time, and why would you not spend it, even if you're not in a leadership position? If you're listening to this podcast, why would you not put on Madonna -- she wrote several good songs and I'm not knocking her. You could listen to that on the way to work, too, I just aged myself. Yeah. But there's also a 20 or 30 minute podcast like the one you're listening to. There's also 20 or 30 minutes and a book that you've mentioned that you can listen to on the way to work. So there's, you can not scroll through Instagram for 20 minutes and read a book for 20 minutes. There's so much to learn and all this. I've had a lot of people say it didn't just affect me at work. Like we are reading this book as a group, Radical Candor as a group. It's helped my marriage,
[00:34:29] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:34:29] Robb Patton: helps all facets of your life. So why would you not want to do that with your days left?
[00:34:36] Nicole Greer: So good. All right. That was a good sermonette. I loved it. All right. Yeah, so listen to Pastor Robb right now, everybody. That was good. Okay. All right. So, Radical Candor is like the edge, and then there's a whole 'nother thing, crucial conversations. Have you heard of that one? There's another book for everybody. _Crucial Conversations._
[00:34:54] Robb Patton: I've not heard that one.
[00:34:55] Nicole Greer: Well, I, I feel like you don't need to have too many crucial conversations if you're using emotional intelligence, radical candor, and you're being funny. You probably won't even need that. You'll have that psychological safety. But Crucial Conversations is about like, I've got a problem with you.
[00:35:11] Robb Patton: Hmm.
[00:35:12] Nicole Greer: And so I gotta tell you, you're a problem. You know? So how can you bring humor? Can you bring humor into that very serious conversation of like if you don't get it together and get here on time, you're not going to be here anymore.
[00:35:29] Robb Patton: Yeah, I think you can. This is. And, and I go back to pointing at yourself. So before you fly big planes, you have to teach other people, which I think is brilliant. You get in the plane, they've never been in a plane, so it's very terrifying. And you have to be able to break stuff down into small bite-sized things. You can't wait around, you can't beat around the bush. They're trying to kill you and they don't know it. So there ends up being a lot of those conversations after you get out of the little plane, you're like, Hey, you know, I did that too, or whatever the thing is. I think the relatability and showing yourself being fallible in those moments helps those conversations. Like pointing out, because really what you could hear, you go back to the ego, you could hear like, I'm wrong, I'm bad. All the things, when somebody starts having one of those difficult conversations. If they start off with here's some things I struggle with and, you know, say you're being late. So one thing that your being late is doing for the other people in the group is this. And if they understand radical candor, like the reason I'm telling you this instead of just not and letting it systemically have a negative effect on the group is because I care about you. So I think by and large, you could bring a little bit of humor by starting off whatever that was. These are more sensitive, you know, depending on how the person is, and that's why the EQ comes into play with that.
[00:37:04] Nicole Greer: That's right. Yeah. And, anytime I've ever had to have the quote unquote crucial conversation, I was serious in those moments. But at the end, I tried to use the communication skills to leave them up. Instead of leaving them crashed, you know? 'Cause you do, you can crash some people when you're like, listen, this is really serious. You've got to knock this off. You don't talk like that. We all know that, but this has gotta stop. You know? But then to be able to still turn on your smile, still talk about like, you know, this is just one day in 365. Let's make tomorrow really good and then make a joke about tomorrow.
[00:37:44] Robb Patton: Yeah. If you're able to make that conversation end a pleasant one.
[00:37:48] Nicole Greer: Yeah.
[00:37:49] Robb Patton: Then chances are that person is going to come back to you when they have whatever that issue is. If you could turn it into something pleasant before the end.
[00:37:58] Nicole Greer: Yeah, I agree. I agree. Okay, so I'm going to ask you for some practical things now. So you gave me a couple, you said the callback, you know, talking about things in threes, and I thought I would give people a quick example. So I speak in front of groups and I went out, this is probably 10 years ago. I went out to San Francisco for a speaking conference with the National Speakers Association, and Christine, is at the front of the room? And Christine is like, you need to not read your bio when you get on stage, you need to like, have something funny.
[00:38:31] And so that triple thing that Robb's talking about, in my bio it says Nicole is a speaker, a coach, a trainer, and a race car driver. And everybody's like, what? And then the end of it is she races home to love on her family. She races to take care of her clients. And, and then my final thing is she tries not to be on the first name basis with state patrol. So, so it's just like a little funny before I get started, right? So people are already like, oh, okay. This is going to be a different talk. It's not so serious. So that's like the triple. Are there any other practical tips you could give the trainers, the coaches, the HR managers, the leaders that are listening?
[00:39:14] Robb Patton: So most people know before you get on your stage, you know, just like you said, most people know your accolades and, and your level of professionalism. No, no. Yeah, it's not the LinkedIn thing. Everybody kind of already knows that. So the most fun thing to do, I think to mix the room up is just a misdirection right off the bat. That will loosen a room or you will lose it totally. But in general, if you start off with whatever your name is, and then the three thing is very easy, like I'm a an accountant, I'm a speaker and a dog walker or whatever, just something super abstract. The third thing is super abstract. And then the next sentence, back up, the dog walker with something even more abstract.
[00:40:06] Nicole Greer: Okay. Layer it. Okay. Good.
[00:40:08] Robb Patton: Yeah. So now everybody's laughing and they're loosened up because when you loosen 'them up, I mean there's science to back all the levity training up.
[00:40:16] Nicole Greer: Oh, I bet.
[00:40:16] Robb Patton: There's science backed stuff in _Humor__, __Seriously_, that book. So I think just the misdirection, the beginning and the three is the third misdirection. And then back that sentence up with a short follow up sentence and then you're good. And the more specific, the better. Like I'm not a dog walker, a dog walker's funny, but a Pekingese, name some super abstract form of dog and it's,
[00:40:43] Nicole Greer: Bruno or something.
[00:40:44] Robb Patton: It's even funnier. Yeah. Yeah. So the more specific you could put, and in that case, you're speaking to a general public. If you speak to, you know, the room is full of accountants, make the third point something that you should never do as an accountant.
[00:41:02] Nicole Greer: Right, right. Yeah. Like, embezzling.
[00:41:06] Robb Patton: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I have a Series 7, a Series 63 and embezzlement accounts against me.
[00:41:13] Nicole Greer: Right, right. right. Yeah, that's perfect. That's perfect. Yeah. Okay. And, and there's that, and then I just thought of one I heard recently. I haven't done it yet, but I, I'm going to try to do it. So I, you know what this is, but I, I didn't even know what this was. I'm going to show my naivete. I didn't know. I didn't know what a doppelganger was.
[00:41:35] Robb Patton: Oh, really?
[00:41:36] Nicole Greer: Was like a dopple. What? And so for those of you who might not know, maybe all of y'all know, but I didn't know. But this gentleman's like, oh yeah. You get pictures of the people who are going to be in the meeting. And then go on the YouTube or on the search engine and look for doppelganger. You can open upload their picture and it'll give somebody that looks just like them. And it could be like a celebrity, it could be whoever. Now be careful. He said be careful because, Google who that person is, make sure you know that they're not a bad person. Make sure they're good. And I think that that would be so fun and just would raise the vibration if we had these. Yeah. If you had that. So there's all sorts of things you got, you can do. And I know many of you're probably going, Nicole, do I have time for that? And I'm thinking, you've got to make time.
[00:42:27] Robb Patton: Yeah. You have to make time. If you're doing a slideshow and you don't have a little bit of funny, like the Aristotle project that Google did. I do a presentation on Project Aristotle.
[00:42:37] Nicole Greer: Teach me.
[00:42:38] Robb Patton: So I went on ChatGPT, and I got Aristotle and he's holding Air Jordans, a mask, and a lemon, and all those are associated with the points of psychological safety that I teach.
[00:42:52] Nicole Greer: Oh my gosh, that's so great. Okay, so that's my last question. Looking ahead, how do you see humor evolving? So, look, he's using ChatGPT to him be funny.
[00:43:01] Robb Patton: Yeah, so we also can take somebody talking about a real event and turn them with AI into Orville Wright? So, on video and their voice. So basically they could be talking, tell me about a time that you did something that wasn't smart and what you learn from it. So now they're sitting there talking as Orville Wright and what he did, and it's hilarious.
[00:43:30] Nicole Greer: I was with my brother and we decided to.
[00:43:33] Robb Patton: He started it. Yeah. Yeah. So the AI is really going to help the humor. Those folks that have a problem with creating humor or anything like that, literally if you just you know, the picture with Aristotle, with Jordans on, and that presentation was really easy to do and it was a hit.
[00:43:52] Nicole Greer: Yeah. That's so good. That's so good. All right. I know my people are like, it can't be time for this to already be over. 'Cause I was having fun. Don't miss that everybody. Okay. So what last nugget would you leave my listeners with? You know, the people who are trying to do training, learning and development, HR leaders who are trying to get their teams to perform. What final nugget would you leave them with?
[00:44:18] Robb Patton: I go back to what you said. I'm going to take the words outta your mouth.
[00:44:21] Nicole Greer: Ok.
[00:44:22] Robb Patton: Learn. There's so many resources. Like when I was growing up, I'm aging myself. All we had was five encyclopedias and that was it. All the knowledge came from the little encyclopedia kit, from whatever. Now we have so many books, there's so many resources out there to be better at what you do. And I would say with a focus on psychology, what you teach, all the things that you preach, I would just say there's no reason not to do that as it filters through all of your life.
[00:44:57] Nicole Greer: So good. All right. This is my brother from another mother who loves to learn, who's a lifelong learner like Nicole Greer, Robb Patton. If we want to get ahold of you, we want to know more about Safety Werks. How do we get ahold of you?
[00:45:11] Robb Patton: So LinkedIn Highbrow Safety Werks, or I'm on LinkedIn as well, or directly to the website. And if you have any ideas like, Hey, I have this process, that would be funny to have a video. Then we also do that kind of stuff for specific instances through the website.
[00:45:28] Nicole Greer: Oh, fantastic. All right. So he can come help you put funny in your company. All right. That's good. All right, everybody, it's the end of the show. Go down, you know the routine. Go down right now and just hit the like button, it takes just one hot second. Do a girl a favor and then would you leave a little love note. We love Robb. He's funny. Whatever want to on there would be fantastic. Helps us with the with the ratings and everything. So if you love the Vibrant Culture Podcast, show us some love. And Robb, I'm so grateful to you. Thanks for being on the show.
[00:45:57] Robb Patton: Thank you so much for having me, Nicole.
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