Laughology News
Wow — what a month it’s been for all of us at Laughology. September into October is always our “high season”, but this year? Particularly busy. From boardrooms to zoo conference centres, we’ve been out there doing what we do best – helping organisations think differently, laugh more, and make shift happen.
We don’t do beige training days. We don’t do death-by-PowerPoint (unless the PowerPoint jokes are intentional). We do energy, insight and sessions that make people think, talk and act differently long after the biscuits are gone.
Here are a few of the locations, conversations and companies that have kept our team busy this month…
HSBC: Storytelling with Strategy
Our Communicating with Impact masterclass for HSBC’s SME Business Banking leadership team saw Stephanie Davies lead a two-and-a-half-hour interactive session on how to use storytelling to bring strategy to life.
With 90 leaders from SME business banking in the room, we challenged the usual leadership comms model. It wasn’t “here’s the strategy, go and deliver it”; instead, we looked at how you shape a hook, how you land a message, how you embed a call to action — so each leader left with a stronger two-minute pitch to take back to their teams.
One of the key messages? It’s not enough to say the strategy — you’ve gotta create energy, personalise it, make it emotive. So, Stephanie and the team spent time on language, emotion, and simplicity, because we know people switch off with jargon and switch on when they’re drawn in.
At Laughology, we believe humour helps the learning land. That may sound risky, but neuroscience backs us up. By building humour and personalised stories in, it makes messages stick and memorable. We went through how you create a ‘hook’, share the insight and information that’s key and create a tangible call to action at the end.
So, for HSBC, we didn’t just support communication — we helped bring strategy to life. And that makes all the difference when senior leaders go back to their teams and say: “Here’s what we mean and here’s how you join in.”
Iceland Foods Retail Ltd People Conference: Collaboration at Chester Zoo
When Iceland (yes, the retailer — not the country) asked us to run a Team Collaboration session at their People Conference, Stephanie Davies – Laughology’s Head of Happiness & CEO – jumped at the chance. The venue was Chester Zoo’s brand-new conference centre, so the walk to work was the best one that month, with chimpanzees, bats and leopards en route. The audience was a bit tamer, with over 100 of Iceland’s people team – comms, HR and the wider support network across stores nationwide.
The brief for Stephanie was simple (but far from easy): “How can we work together even better in support of our 2026 strategy?” So, we designed a session that looked at how teams collaborate, how they connect, and how they really show up for each other beyond the everyday tasks.
We brought in humour, real stories, and practical ways to shift from “me” to “we”. Because when you’re supporting 800+ stores, you need something more than just saying “teamwork matters”. There were breakout exercises, there were games (yes, games), and plenty of laughter.
Maybo Conference: When banter meets boundaries
When Maybo, the UK’s leading harm-prevention and violence-reduction training company, invited us to speak at their national conference, we knew this would be something special. Stephanie Davies delivered a masterclass on It’s Only Banter — exploring the fine line between fun and offence — followed by a keynote on FLIP It Thinking, which is our tool for building resilience through humour.
Over 90 partner trainers attended the masterclass; the next morning, the keynote went deep into psychology, language, patterns and mindset. The key question: “When does banter boost morale — and when does it undermine trust?” The discussions went real: about psychological safety, challenge, and fellowship. With discussions around teams in high-risk environments, and the fact that for them, humour isn’t optional — it’s a survival tool. Used well, it becomes a language of inclusion. Used carelessly, it can silence voices and erode confidence.
One participant commented,
“I left this session with a lot to reflect on about how humour operates in teams — as leaders and colleagues, we don’t just want to connect, we want to create spaces where people feel seen, valued, safe and brave enough to speak up. We’ve long believed that laughter — structured, purposeful, intentional laughter — makes teams stronger, now we have the science and ways to challenge when it crosses the line.”
If you would like to book a consultation with Stephanie or a member of the team to discuss your challenges, we can explore ideas and solutions with you. Please get in touch with stephanie@laughology.co.uk or Doug@laughology.co.uk
