What I Like About That Is
What I Like About That Is is an applied affirmation exercise in which participants practice completing the sentence 'What I like about that is...' in response to ideas, proposals, or contributions, training the cognitive and verbal habit of specific positive engagement before evaluation.
Structure
The Prompt
One participant offers an idea, suggestion, or statement. It may be realistic or absurd.
The Completion
Each other participant in sequence completes the sentence 'What I like about that is...' with a genuine, specific observation. No negation, qualification, or redirection is permitted in the completion.
The Round
The exercise continues until every participant has completed the sentence about the original contribution, or until the facilitator introduces a new prompt.
How to Teach It
Objectives
What I Like About That Is trains the linguistic and cognitive pattern of affirmative specificity. The constraint of completing a sentence forces participants past generic approval into genuine observation.
Facilitation Notes
Use increasingly challenging or unusual prompts as the group develops fluency. Easy prompts produce easy completions; difficult prompts reveal the depth of the affirmative skill.
Common Pitfalls
Participants complete the sentence but immediately follow with 'but...' or 'although...'. The exercise ends at the period after the completion. No qualifications.
In Applied Settings
Design Thinking and Ideation
What I Like About That Is is used to build affirmative response habits before critique phases in design thinking workshops, creating a culture of possibility before a culture of evaluation.
Management and Team Communication
Managers use the exercise in team training to develop the habit of specific positive acknowledgment, a skill that improves morale and receptivity when paired with developmental feedback.
Negotiation and Conflict Resolution
Facilitators use the exercise to develop the capacity to find genuine value in an opposing position before articulating disagreement, a core skill in productive negotiation.
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Related Exercises
What I Like about That
What I Like About That is an applied exercise in which participants respond to each other's contributions by naming a specific thing they genuinely appreciate about what was just said or done, training affirmative listening, specific positive feedback, and the habit of building on rather than redirecting ideas.
Gratitude
Gratitude exercises are structured activities for expressing and receiving appreciation in group settings, drawn from applied improvisation practice. The exercises use improv principles -- specificity, presence, and full acknowledgment of another person -- to make gratitude concrete rather than perfunctory. Participants practice directing genuine, specific appreciation toward named individuals and receiving that appreciation without deflecting or minimizing it. The exercises build positive culture, strengthen interpersonal bonds, and establish relational norms that support collaborative work.
The Cycle of Deep Yes And
The Cycle of Deep Yes And is an applied exercise in which participants practice full acceptance and active building in paired conversation, moving through multiple rounds that progressively deepen their commitment to the yes-and principle. The exercise trains the habit of genuine affirmation before contribution.
The Right Attitude
The Right Attitude is an applied exercise in which participants practice reframing the same situation through multiple emotional or attitudinal lenses, discovering how the chosen attitude changes perceived options, energy, and outcomes. The exercise builds the habit of deliberate attitude selection as a professional skill.
Feedback
Feedback is an applied improv exercise in which participants construct conversations and letters one word at a time, practicing the principles of constructive feedback delivery and reception through a collaborative word-at-a-time structure. The constraint removes defensive preparation and forces participants to co-create the feedback conversation in real time, revealing the habits, avoidances, and instincts that govern how feedback is actually given and received in professional settings.
Fuck Yeah!
Fuck Yeah! is an affirmation exercise in which players celebrate each other's offers, ideas, and choices with immediate, enthusiastic, profanity-optional approval. When a scene partner makes an offer, the group or the other performer responds with full-body, vocally committed affirmation rather than analysis or evaluation. The exercise trains the Yes-And reflex at its most visceral and develops comfort with unreserved enthusiasm as a collaborative default.
The Lineage
Explore the schools and structures that influenced or evolved from What I Like About That Is.
Improvise! (Max Dickins)
How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). What I Like About That Is. Retrieved September 29, 2026, from https://improvarchive.org/exercises/what-i-like-about-that-is
The Improv Archive. "What I Like About That Is." The Improv Archive, 2026. https://improvarchive.org/exercises/what-i-like-about-that-is.
The Improv Archive. "What I Like About That Is." The Improv Archive, 2026, https://improvarchive.org/exercises/what-i-like-about-that-is. Accessed September 29, 2026.
The Improv Archive is a systemically maintained repository. The archive itself acts as the corporate author.