What They Said
Participants practice accurate recall and reporting of what others have said, building listening precision and accountability.
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Related Exercises
Paraphrase
Partners practice paraphrasing each other's statements to confirm understanding and demonstrate active listening.
Here's What I Heard
Here's What I Heard is an applied listening exercise in which one partner speaks briefly about something real -- a current situation, a concern, a recent experience -- and the listener reflects back what they heard in their own words. The speaker then responds to the reflection, noting what the listener captured accurately and what was missed or distorted. The exercise develops active listening, accurate paraphrasing, and the discipline of genuinely receiving another person's communication before responding.
Count Yes/No in a Day
Count Yes/No in a Day is an applied improvisation awareness exercise in which participants track how many times they say 'Yes' and 'No' across all their communication channels over the course of a day or a designated week. The exercise builds awareness of habitual agreement and refusal patterns, revealing whether participants' default conversational moves align with their stated values around collaboration and openness.
Listen to Understand, Not to Respond
Listen to Understand, Not to Respond is an applied improv exercise that directly targets the most common pattern of inadequate listening in professional settings: the habit of spending the duration of another person's speaking turn formulating a response rather than receiving what is being said. The exercise creates a structured constraint -- participants may not respond until they have first reflected back what they heard to the speaker's satisfaction -- making the response-preparation habit visible and interrupting it through practice.
Be in the Moment
Activities focused on developing present-moment awareness and full engagement in current interactions without mental multitasking.
Count Off
Count Off is a group focus exercise in which players attempt to count to a target number, one person speaking at a time, without any predetermined order or pattern. If two or more players speak simultaneously, the count restarts from one. No gestures, signals, or eye contact are permitted to coordinate turns. The exercise trains group sensitivity, the ability to read collective impulse, and the patience to find the right moment to contribute. Count Off reveals the ensemble's current level of attunement: a group that can consistently reach high numbers has developed a shared awareness that transfers directly to scene work.
How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). What They Said. Retrieved March 17, 2026, from https://improvarchive.org/exercises/what-they-said
The Improv Archive. "What They Said." The Improv Archive, 2026. https://improvarchive.org/exercises/what-they-said.
The Improv Archive. "What They Said." The Improv Archive, 2026, https://improvarchive.org/exercises/what-they-said. Accessed March 17, 2026.
The Improv Archive is a systemically maintained repository. The archive itself acts as the corporate author.