From the Memory Box 

Issue No 19

I have always sought the wise counsel of trusted people I know – before submitting my written work for publication. Any accolades I receive, belong with them too - they know who they are. Focusing on irony as topic for this piece has not garnered me much support with any of them. It’s a short word with a lot of complications – making the drawing on it as a leadership tool challenging. Counterintuitively, I have pushed on. Maybe it is because irony has always fascinated me, in part because it makes me smile, if not laugh, and in part because it generally has more than a smidgeon of a message in it. 

That time-honoured, brilliant 1980s British satirical television series - Yes, Prime Minister, stacked as it was, with irony drew me into the benefits of irony’s capacity to simultaneously induce the taking of a chill pill and laugh. I still chuckle at Permanent Secretary to Prime Minister Hacker, Sir Humphrey Appleby’s, immortal line: ‘Never believe anything until it’s been officially denied.' Time will tell if I am right or wrong – there’ll be some irony, either way. 

Irony comes in several forms, verbal, dramatic and situational. Verbal irony is when a person says one thing but means the opposite. Dramatic irony Is when the audience knows something that the characters do not, whilst situational irony is when the opposite of what is expected happens.

As a young teacher I witnessed many occasions when the school wit would poke fun at sacred cows of organisational requirements. Often these focused on the latest initiatives schools were required to implement. More than once I heard, to the raucous laughter of colleagues, comments such as, ‘Yes, we did that fifteen years ago – gee it was a great success then!’ Some cringed. More often than not, my school leaders of the time, dismissed the wits of irony as spoilers, sarcastic negative members of staff - blockers to be ignored. As such, irony is risky.   

More recently, it is not uncommon to hear the refrain from colleagues that initiatives to brought to bear on schools, with the worthy aim of reducing workload pressures, appears to be counter-productive. Similarly, we’ve all heard the response – ‘I hear what you say.’ The clear implication being that something might change, but from previous experience, rarely does. 

Problematically, there is always the danger of irony being misinterpreted as sarcasm, stumbling into sarcasm or worse still, being deliberately so. Whilst the two are similar, irony is often confused with sarcasm. Irony, at its best, cleverly evokes humour and can act as an agent of positive disruptor. Sarcasm, however, in drawing on irony, has a stronger intent to ridicule or mock, often harshly or crudely and is often personal. 

As Roger Kreuz, Professor of Psychology at the University of Memphis, USA, illustrates in his 2021 book, Irony & Sarcasm, irony is a notoriously slippery concept from its distant cousins, coincidence, satire, parody and paradox, not to mention irony that is weaponised.

How then can irony be harnessed positively in the workplace? That’s no small challenge. Understanding, trust and by extension, safety would be required as fundamental building blocks within an organisation before irony can become a catalyst for productive change. 

Worth a thought? Maybe – all the more so if the use of irony in the workplace could be harnessed so as to lead to organisational improvement, this including the reduction in the incidence of workplace alienation of voices not ‘heard’.