Part of what makes the audience laugh is that humor releases tension for the audience. The performers might actually build up tension in the first part of the scene, so the release of tension is more profound later in the scene – and likely to generate bigger laughs.
In the business world, the demands of any job can keep people working long and stressful hours, and humor can help release tension in a similar way. For people with very high stress and high-stakes jobs, such as soldiers on the battlefield or surgeons in the operating room, humor is at its most vital for releasing tension. It also enables people to come back to the necessary task refreshed. This is the basis for gallows humor, where the comedy is dark and could be seen as inappropriate in other contexts, but is a survival technique in stressful situations.
One thing to keep in mind when using humor as a tool to release tension in business – particularly in high stakes moments – is to never punch down. This rule, commonly referred to in the comedy world (and particularly in satire), says that if you are going to have a person as the target of your joke, they should be of equal or higher status to the joke teller. Leonard explains, “You can make fun of the boss, but if you start making fun of the secretaries or the intern, it’s not satire. It’s just mean.”