Certain Uncertainty

Organizations are changing, paradigms are shifting, generations are crossing, expectations are astronomical, power is eroding…and it’s only 9:01 on Monday morning. What will this week bring?

We are living in times of unprecedented stress. People are under constant pressure to stay educated, motivated, and invigorated. But really, with all of the stress they face, they simply want to get intoxicated. Of course, that doesn’t really help with job performance.

So what is a solution that can relieve stress without getting you fired for on-the-job-inebriation?

You guessed it...laughter.

When something is stressing us out, we are unable to look at the situation objectively. We tend to be caught up in the emotion and tension of the moment. To get unstuck, ask yourself, "How can I look at this in a way that lets me laugh about it?" Our shorthand for this is, "How can I do a 180?"

For example, let's say you have to deal with the jerk at work that makes your skin crawl. While it may seem that there is nothing worse than having to deal with him, realize that there is one thing that is worse...you could be him!

When we can laugh about something that's irking us, it minimizes the hold it has over us. Because tension is released, you can look at the situation with a fresh perspective, thus increasing the chances of innovation rather than stagnation and burn-out.


As Corporate Comedians, The O'Shea Report offers corporate comedy, business humor, and motivational humor keynotes for meetings and conventions.

Innovative Thinking to Deal with Change

Our friend worked for a company for 10 years and decided it was time for a change. He didn't necessarily want to leave the company. However, he was looking for a new opportunity within the company. He gave his 2 weeks notice for his position and told his manager of his intentions.

After a week passed, he had not made any progress toward securing a new position. He decided it was time to get creative in his approach. In order to get the word out to the management team that he was available for other positions, he sent out the following "movie poster" using humor and parody reviews by key managers in the company:



Needless to say, it got attention! After sending this out, he was offered a new position in a new department. Due to his innovative approach, he created the change that worked for him!

Where do you need to approach change with innovative thinking?



As Corporate Comedians, The O'Shea Report offers business humor, motivational humor keynotes, and change speakers for meetings and conventions.

About Face! Observations from Corporate Comedians

A professional acquaintance of ours recently had a consulting contract with a sizable company. She sent one of her team members, Cindy, to work on the project, and after several months Cindy produced record results. She surpassed all expectations and delivered the best numbers the company had ever experienced.

Later, when another project came up for the company, our colleague said, "Since Cindy produced such great results, I’ll assume you would like to work with her again."

Their response: "Actually, no."

Our colleague was surprised. "Really? She had the best results in your company’s history. Why don't you want her again?"

Their response: "We just didn't see her enough."

After all of Cindy's hard work, it didn't come down to results. What ultimately mattered: facetime. They just wanted to see her face.

Here’s the good news for the inept: Since many organizations focus on time rather than results, this means that you don't even have to be good. You just have to be THERE.

It's about "face."

So show your face! Show it everywhere, show it often! Here are some tips for how to show your face as much as possible, and even get ahead where you work:

1) When you leave for lunch, paste a photo of yourself to your chair at your desk, so people will see your face while you're gone. They will assume that even though you aren't there, you really are.

2) Bringing a sleeping bag and spend a couple of nights a week camping on the premises. If you can sleep in your boss's office all the better...as long as your face is there.

3) During the company Halloween party, make a mask of your own face which you will wear over you're real face. That way you will have twice the face appearance, and get paid overtime that week.

4) Go for an entire month without doing any actual work, but show up early and leave late every day. When your superiors ask you why you haven't gotten your work done, simply say, "but I was here, wasn't I?" They will reply, "Oh...yeah, you were. Ok, nevermind."


As Corporate Comedians, The O'Shea Report offers corporate comedy, business humor, and motivational humor keynotes for meetings and conventions.

Business Humor...a remedy for "tough times"

We hear it everywhere: Times are tough! Disaster looms large!
When people are facing times of uncertainty and stress they desperately need two things:

1. To connect with community
2. To let the lid off the pressure cooker of stress

Ironically for many groups, when budgets tighten, one of the first things to go is anything that is considered "fun." This is unfortunate--we can't tell you how many times audience members come up to us after our program and say:

Thank goodness they brought you in! You hit the nail on the head. I really needed to laugh about that. It's really been stressing me out. It's nice to see that our management gets it!

Big Time ROI

So why on earth should organizations invest in anything other than The 27 Steps of the 48 Components of the 8 Laws of the Flavor of the Week?

Bottom line: Because your people need it!

When you bring a business humorist to your organization's meeting, you accomplish several goals:

1. You build good will between organizers and attendees by creating a positive experience.


2. You foster connection and community within your organization.


3. You allow the audience to release tension around relevant issues through laughter.


4. Because stress is released, your audience can look at everyday situations with a fresh perspective, thus increasing the chances of innovation rather than stagnation and burn-out.

According to Mark LeBlanc, President of the National Speakers Association, "Humor is one of those intangible elements of a presentation that is invaluable. Without it, even the best strategies and ideas can fall flat. It's the intangibles that drive the tangibles and make them stick. It turns a meeting into an experience."

To wake up your meeting with relevant, custom business humor, contact The O'Shea Report at: 303-371-2849 or check out our website at http://www.theosheareport.com/

As Corporate Comedians, The O'Shea Report offers corporate comedy, business humor, and motivational humor keynotes for meetings and conventions.

Speaking of Change: Are the Rumors True?

Disclaimer: the article you are about to read contains references to Coors Brewing Company, which is headquartered here in our home state of Colorado. Now as there are quite a number of subscribers from Coors on our newsletter list, they will be reading various witticisms about Coors from us, including a few jabs at Coors beer itself and how it tastes. Please be assured that these jabs are nothing more than good-natured ribbing, and even though Coors beer tastes like hydrogen peroxide, please understand that we have bought and continue to buy Coors products. In fact, we have spent more money on Coors beer than water, barley and grain combined in our entire lifetimes. So our financial support gives us the right to make witty comments about your product. And now, on with the jesting.

Are the rumors true?

A friend of ours works for Coors. Well she used to work for Coors. Now Coors is merging with Miller and it will be called Miller-Coors. They also have another joint venture with Molson, so they are also Molson-Coors.

This means that Coors will now taste like Miller, which means that Miller now tastes like Coors, which means that it doesn't matter anyway because they taste the same.

So Coors, as far as taste goes, ahem, is not going to change. But what will change for Coors employees?

It depends on your job function. In fact, our friend is not sure what her future is with her job and how it will change. She did have one interesting thing she did in order to keep her sense of humor:

As soon as the rumors started flying around at Coors that they may be doing another big merger, she started writing the rumors down in a journal. She wrote down every rumor she heard at work throughout the months, just to see how many of them would come true.

And she discovered that out of all the rumors that flew around, only about 40% came to fruition.
Here are a few things she heard which did NOT end up happening:

• Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies baseball team, did not become "Miller Stadium" or "Molson Mansion." Likewise, the team was not renamed "The Molson Mooses."


• Pete Coors did not change his last name to Miller during a drunken evening with Bill Gates.


• Every single Coors employee was not offered a bag of free peanuts if they volunteered to give up their job rather than wait for layoffs.


• The "Silver Bullet" did not become "The Lone Gunman."


• Monkeys did not take over management positions (they're all too busy working for the government).


• Smoking was not suddenly going to be allowed at your desk for three weeks in July.


• Coors did not attach sensors to the bottoms of staplers to prevent employees from stealing them from the office. So people went ahead and stole them.

Here are some of the things she heard which DID later came to be true:

• Coors not only merged with Miller, they also merged with Molson - which means the beer STILL tastes the same.


• The plant in Colorado would stay open--and it would still get a foot of snow followed by a balmy 80 degree day, followed by snow, followed by sunny golf weather. And now you know how that special Rocky Mountain water creates that signature Coors taste.


• Coors did become Miller-Coors, which is similar to a woman getting married and hyphenating her name. If they have children, their last names will be Miller-Molson-Coors.

The universality in all of this: when faced with change and uncertainty, people freak out. It doesn't solve anything, but at least people feel better.

As Corporate Comedians, The O'Shea Report offers corporate comedy, business humor, and motivational humor keynotes for meetings and conventions.

Speakers Bureau | Humorous Speakers

We presented to the International Association of Speakers Bureaus in April of this year in Chicago. Each day, we presented our Convention Coverage segments about the bureau business and the speaking industry.

As usual, we interviewed many people throughout the association to determine what their hot button topics were. As a result, we wrote material ahead of time about their issues in order to help them to see them in a different light.

Additionally, we sat in on all of the general session and reported on the happenings at the convention.

Here is a bit that we presented about new speakers who can make bureau folks' lives difficult:

Humorous Keynote Speakers for Realtors

We recently presented Change 180 to Allen Tate Realty, North Carolina's largest realty company. They wanted a fun, upbeat keynote to energize their people during their sales rally.

We interviewed people throughout the organization to see what stressors and changes they are facing. One area of frustration is how inspections can sometimes slow down the sales process. To that end, we created this custom video which we played during our program: