EEA YouTube Show: At the Crossroads of Business, Comedy, and Acting
This program continues the Enterprise Engagement Alliance RRN meaningful meetings series with corporate speakers, entertainers, educators, athletes and more talking about some of the insights they share corporate meeting programs and how they try to make meetings more meaningful.Some Background
Insights
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What do business, acting, and comedy have in common? A low survival rate and a universal need for perseverance, resilience, agility, and above all a sense of humor.
This was part of the discussion on this July 7, 1 pm ET Enterprise Engagement Alliance Purpose Leadership and Stakeholder Management YouTube show. It explores the junction of business, acting, and comedy with actor comedian Patrick Warburton, the actor and comedian, and Paul J. Voss, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Georgia State University, and President, of Ethikos, his public speaking firm.
Click here to watch or listen to the show.
Some Background
As an actor, Warburton is probably best known for his roles as David Puddy on Seinfeld: Elaine’s boyfriend; Jeff Bingham on Rules of Engagement, and Lemony Snicket, the narrator of A Series of Unfortunate Events on Netflix. Voss is an award-winning professor specializing in disruption, history of crisis, successful cultures, decision making, leadership, history, literature, philosophy, and theology.
Did you know that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only about 20-25% of businesses survive 15 years, and even less time for Silicon Valley startups. According to Connected Comedy, only about 2% of actors make a living, and that includes a broad definition of the term. Its survey of 137 comedians found that only 10% make $500 a month from comedy.
Warburton and Voss collaborate on a corporate speaking program called Oh Brother! covering disruption innovation, grit, resiliency, entrepreneurship, and many other crucial business topics, combining expert insights with humor to create an unforgettable experience.
Insights
Here are some highlights of the insights they share at corporate events.
Perseverance, resilience, agility, and humor: They emphasize the importance of these qualities in business, acting, and comedy.
Disruption, innovation, grit, and entrepreneurship: In their corporate speaking program "Oh Brother!", they cover topics such as disruption, innovation, grit, resiliency, and entrepreneurship. They combine expert insights with humor to create a memorable experience.
Humor. We have to be able to laugh at ourselves. In Medieval times, only the court jesters had the immunity to say what others couldn’t. To make people laugh, authenticity is critical. Comedy is two parts truth with a dollop of exaggeration. Being a celebrity buys a comedian only a few minutes on stage.
Authenticity is critical. Warburton says his comedic career has taken off primarily because he writes his own material and 95% of his shows—now up to 80 minutes—and because they are based on his actual experiences. “When I sit down and I write my own material, I know it’s unique....I went from a career in which I was told how to dress, what to do and what to say, to being completely myself.”
Audience safety. People must feel comfortable and relaxed before they can really laugh. Warburton says he doesn’t wait for people to laugh—he likes a fast pace and that generally works for his audiences. People have paid money to see the performance. It has to work.
Absurdity, irony, and laughter. Business doesn’t have a monopoly on absurdity; it’s everywhere in life. The reason we laugh so hard is because the alternative is to cry, Voss points out.
It’s never too late. Warburton didn’t get into comedy until he was in his late 50s and went from nervously doing a five-minute routine to a fully booked calendar of 80-minute routines. He has now done over 100 shows in 40 different cities and 35 venues, going from small to ever bigger locations.
Humor and epiphanies. Voss has seen how humor can also help foster personal or business revelations, which he believes helps explain the appeal of their “Oh Brother!” corporate speaking program.
Biggest life lesson. Voss quotes Hamlet. “This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou cans’t not then be false to any man.”
Why “Oh Brother!” Voss says their program is for those event moments when planners want to liven up the audience, perhaps right after lunch when people are feeling a lower level of energy, or before the social time at the end of the program day. It’s a program for planners looking for a high-energy program that is thought-provoking, creative, funny, witty, that's going to generate excitement, enthusiasm, raise questions, and do serious work.”
With an approach highly customized to what the organization is seeking to convey, they say they work off the similarities of business, acting, and comedy to foster memorable inspiration. Audiences, Voss adds, appreciate getting a peak behind the curtain of how things are done in Hollywood and then placing it in a real world context and giving them some new tools to move forward with for their own tasks.
Both say they enjoy meet- and- greet and other opportunities to collaborate or mingle with attendees.
To book “Oh Brother?”, contact their agent Jaki Baskow at jaki@jakibaskow.com.
Enterprise Engagement Alliance Services
Celebrating our 16th year, the Enterprise Engagement Alliance helps organizations enhance performance through:
1. Information and marketing opportunities on stakeholder management and total rewards:
ESM Weekly on stakeholder management since 2009; click here for a media kit.
RRN Weekly on total rewards since 1996; click here for a EEA YouTube channel on enterprise engagement, human capital, and total rewards insights and how-to information since 2020.
2. Learning: Purpose Leadership and Stakeholder
Management Academy to enhance future equity value and performance for your organization.3. Books on implementation: Enterprise Engagement for CEOs and Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap.
4. Advisory services and research: Strategic guidance, learning and certification on stakeholder management, measurement, metrics, and corporate sustainability reporting.
5. Permission-based targeted business development to identify and build relationships with the people most likely to buy.
6. Public speaking and meeting facilitation on stakeholder management. The world’s leading speakers on all aspects of stakeholder management across the enterprise.
