Franci J. Blassberg is a partner at Debevoise and Plimpton LLP and was named by the National Law Journal as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America. When I interviewed her for my book, Ambition Is Not A Dirty Word, Franci said to me: “Sometimes you can change the tone in the room in a minute—defuse it—with humor and a tiny amount of self-deprecation.”

Well-placed self-deprecating humor is a hallmark of emotional intelligence—the ability to interact effectively with others.

Sometimes you get hit with an insult. That isn’t the time for self-deprecating humor. But don’t necessarily swing in the opposite direction and look like a woman with a chip on her shoulder. I see many women with this attitude. They don’t accomplish as much as they could. Others don't want to assist them with their concerns.

Instead, if you’ve taken a hard hit, learn to use aggressive yet disarming humor—humor combined with “a slap without a hand,” an idiomatic expression from Uruguay meaning “a dignified act of revenge.” Here’s a great example.

Franci told me about something one of her clients said to her early in her career, when she first began representing his firm:

"He said, 'I never would have thought that I would have a radical, Jewish feminist as my lawyer.' I thought that he, at the time, was just getting acculturated. I thought he meant it as, 'My goodness, you’re a really good lawyer and even for someone like me I can see beyond all that other stuff.' So it wasn’t intended as a put down, although one could have interpreted it that way. So I said, sort of jokingly: 'I resent that; I’m not a radical.' I think using humor aggressively and both offensively and defensively, if you would, is a key strategy for women to use. It’s not clear if that joke was offense or defense. But you can take a lot of tension out of a room with humor. And women need to learn to do that do that, rather than seem to be uptight and ill-at-ease."

Humor is one thing we all enjoy. And it can be a great tool for disarming would-be detractors. Plus, nothing feels better than laughing—unless it’s getting a clueless buffoon or a hostile opponent on your side because you’ve shared a guffaw together. Laughter really is powerful medicine.

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