Starting with Hum

Hum is a fun word.

Only three letters – a short vowel sandwiched between two soft consonants.  Sounds like what it is, which is more than most words can say.

I wanted hum to be in the titling and concept of this new consulting initiative because it’s such a perfect word.  Shout, Blurt, Whine and numerous others simply didn’t make the cut.  They too are forms of sound, but they represent dissonance more than resonance, discord more than harmony.

Along with the fun sound it makes when you say it, the shortness of hum allows it to be placed at the start of some really cool words. I’d like to share one in particular that will hope to get us started with a serious smile…

Humor begins with hum. 

When it comes to the role it can play within the lives of healthy people, there is nothing funny about a sense of humor.  As long as it is not used at the expense of others, humor can be a source of both grounding to our character and buoyancy to our spirit.  My father, Jim Sassen, had a particular gift for one of the most treasured kinds of humor – the self-deprecating kind.  Countless people through the course of dad’s life listened to him share stories of goofs, gaffes, botches and blunders.  At the end of virtually all those accounts, dad was the dupe.

But only kind of.

Because in the grander scheme, dad drew so many people to him by eliminating pretense and giving witness to imperfections that we all have.  Such is why people felt so comfortable around dad. Those who laughed the hardest were those who could identify most with the scratch and dent parts of humanity. 

A lesson I learned from Dad is that when you can artfully employ a self-deprecating sense of humor, two gaps close.  The first is the gap between yourself and others, as kinship is found in the honesty and transparency of sharing stories of one’s own foibles.  Nobody’s out of reach if they’re giving accounts of themselves from a place of humility. 

The second is perhaps harder to recognize, but certainly no less profound.  It is the closing of the gap between you and you; the person you are and the person you think you are.  As soon as you can laugh at yourself, there is a simultaneous softening and sharpening of yourself; you become more approachable and more authentic in lockstep.  

In his classic book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni identifies the first dysfunction as invulnerability.  Teams have to find a way to push through the veneer of invulnerability in order to more fully establish trust.  As elusive and aspirational as trust is, it is both ironic and poetic that a little bit of self deprecating humor can go a long way toward fostering it.  It’s honest, it is without pretense and it acknowledges that none of us are perfect.  

And so I encourage you to keep in your portfolio at least one story you can tell in which things didn’t go the way you expected.  Egg on face. Taking a beamer. Dork Patrol.  It will serve as testimony to being a work in progress and let others know that even though you don’t hit every note in the symphony of your life, you’ve still got your hum.