Funny You Should Say That!
Funny You Should Say That is an applied improv exercise in which participants practice building enthusiastically on unexpected or challenging statements by finding and naming a genuine connection to their own experience or contribution. Rather than redirecting or correcting an unexpected statement, the participant responds with "Funny you should say that..." and then connects the unexpected statement to something real. The exercise develops cognitive flexibility, active listening, and the capacity to find genuine relevance in what was not anticipated.
Structure
Setup
Participants work in pairs or in a group. A facilitator or rotating caller makes unexpected, seemingly off-topic, or surprising statements about a shared topic.
Progression
When an unexpected statement is made, the responding participant begins with "Funny you should say that..." and immediately identifies a genuine connection between the statement and their own contribution, experience, or point of view. The connection does not have to be logical; it must be honest and generative.
Example: Topic is a project update. Unexpected statement: "I was thinking about sea turtles this morning." Response: "Funny you should say that -- the migration pattern we're seeing in our customer data reminds me of that. They're clustering, then dispersing, then clustering again."
The exercise runs through multiple rounds, with different unexpected statements requiring different connections.
Conclusion
The facilitator closes with a debrief on what the connections revealed and how the exercise felt compared to the instinct to redirect.
How to Teach It
Objectives
Funny You Should Say That develops the habit of finding relevance rather than redirecting, and the cognitive agility to make genuine connections across disparate inputs. It trains participants to stay in the conversation even when it goes somewhere unexpected.
How to Explain It
"Your job is to find the real connection -- not to make something up, but to genuinely find where that unexpected thing touches your own experience or thinking. 'Funny you should say that' is your runway."
Scaffolding
Begin with mild surprises before introducing more dramatically unexpected statements. The connection skill develops across a range -- starting in the shallow end builds confidence before the deeper water.
Common Pitfalls
Participants sometimes manufacture a connection rather than finding a real one. The coaching note is that manufactured connections sound hollow and close down the conversation rather than opening it. The exercise's value is in the genuine search for connection, not in the performance of agility.
In Applied Settings
Learning Objectives
In applied settings, Funny You Should Say That addresses the common professional reflex of redirecting or dismissing unexpected contributions rather than engaging with them. This reflex is responsible for a significant portion of unconsidered ideas, frustrated colleagues, and missed connections in organizational meetings and brainstorming sessions. The exercise trains the alternative: genuine engagement with the unexpected as a source of new perspective.
Workplace Transfer
The transfer is direct to meeting culture, customer interaction, and leadership communication. A leader who can find the genuine connection in an off-topic contribution rather than redirecting it signals psychological safety and models creative listening. A facilitator who can bridge unexpected inputs to the session's goals rather than shutting them down keeps energy alive and inclusive. The exercise develops both the cognitive habit and the social confidence to say "Funny you should say that" in a real meeting and mean it.
Facilitation Context
Funny You Should Say That is used in creative thinking workshops, communication training, facilitation skills development, and innovation programs. It works well in pairs or in small groups and can be run in fifteen to twenty minutes. Group sizes of 8 to 20 are ideal.
Debrief Framing
Ask participants: "Was the connection you found real, or did you perform one? What was it like to search for the link rather than dismiss the statement? When in your work do you need that reflex -- to find relevance in what you weren't expecting?"
Skills Developed
Worth Reading
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Related Exercises
Just Seven Words
Just Seven Words is an applied improv exercise that constrains each participant to responding with exactly seven words -- no more, no fewer. The constraint forces deliberate word choice, disrupts habitual overexplanation, and trains the ability to communicate precisely and completely within a tight limit. The exercise is used in applied improv to develop conciseness, clarity, and the discipline of editing thought before speaking.
What They Said
What They Said is an applied listening exercise in which participants must accurately paraphrase or repeat back what the previous speaker said before contributing their own point, training active listening, retention under pressure, and the discipline of understanding before responding.
Take That Back
Take That Back is an exercise in which players improvise a scene and when the leader rings a bell, the speaking actor must replace their last line with something different. The exercise trains performers to generate multiple possibilities for any moment and demonstrates that the first idea is rarely the best.
Non Sequitor
Non Sequitur is a hybrid game and exercise in which performers deliberately break logical connections between lines of dialogue, forcing each new statement to have no apparent relationship to the one before it. The exercise trains performers to let go of the need to make sense, builds comfort with absurdity, and paradoxically reveals how audiences will construct meaning even from disconnected material.
Random Words
Random Words is an applied improvisation exercise from Joseph A. Keefe's Improv Yourself in which partners each place ten dissimilar, unrelated words in a random pattern on paper and then compose an original story, poem, or monologue incorporating all ten words. The exercise builds the creative muscle of forging connections between unrelated concepts under constraint.
Out of the Box
Out of the Box is a partnered exercise in which one person leads another around the room, pointing to objects, and the other must immediately name each object as anything other than what it actually is. A chair becomes a volcano, a lamp becomes a saxophone. The exercise breaks habitual thinking patterns and trains participants to override the labeling instinct, building the rapid creative association that underlies strong improvisation and innovative thinking.
The Lineage
Explore the schools and structures that influenced or evolved from Funny You Should Say That!.
The Applied Improvisation Mindset (Dudeck & McClure)
How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). Funny You Should Say That!. Retrieved September 28, 2026, from https://improvarchive.org/exercises/funny-you-should-say-that
The Improv Archive. "Funny You Should Say That!." The Improv Archive, 2026. https://improvarchive.org/exercises/funny-you-should-say-that.
The Improv Archive. "Funny You Should Say That!." The Improv Archive, 2026, https://improvarchive.org/exercises/funny-you-should-say-that. Accessed September 28, 2026.
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