In a recent TED blog post, The New Yorker Cartoon Editor Bob Mankoff picked the cartoon above as one of his all-time favorites. He cited the “empty-headed cliché” (“Think outside the box”) as the primary source of the cartoon’s humor. I wholeheartedly agree! Work-related jargon can provide an endless vein of humor – and it’s not always intentional.

I’ve been thinking lately about how important humor is – especially in the workplace.  Stress is said to be the number one contributor to poor employee morale. It’s also widely accepted that there’s a direct correlation between humor in the workplace and stress reduction.

Among other benefits, workplace laughter is said to promote:

• Morale
• Creativity
• Energy
• Attendance
• Productivity
• Positive relationships
• Employee happiness.

If you can measure good employee relations by the amount of laughter present in the workplace, there are days when I think we have among the best morale in the business. I love the sound of laughter in the hallways and am a firm believer in the link between happy employees and high performance.

So, this month, we’ll be looking at what companies are doing to boost productivity by using humor in the workplace. (And, no, I won’t be calling it “Thinking outside the box.”)