April marks National Humor Month, an annual reminder that laughter is not just a release valve but more importantly, a bridge.
Employees are facing an increasing sense of uncertainty, change and polarization. Humor has the ability to bring people closer and curiosity is the difference. When we pause to read the room, challenge our assumptions and truly listen, we turn potential challenges into shared moments. Humor connects by making people feel seen and understood.
Curiosity is the key to keeping humor constructive instead of careless. Thoughtful questions lower defenses and build psychological safety that opens doors to new ideas. Connection comes before commentary. That slight yet critical shift in perspective reveals the irony, insight, or shared absurdity that makes laughter and innovation possible.
For teams navigating continuous change, humor fueled by curiosity can spark stronger bonds, fresh thinking and the resilience to adapt. With that in mind, we asked members of Peppercomm’s Laughing Matters Council to share how they use curiosity to create connections and deliver well-timed comic relief when it matters most.
Luvell Anderson, Professor and Head of Philosophy at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
“Be curious. Not judgmental.” I heard this line on Ted Lasso, and it has stuck with me since. It is a great guide to a more fulfilling life. Curiosity is a virtue that comic greats have harnessed to find the profound in humor and foster community. George Carlin, for example, was a master at this. Curious humor is like philosophy. At its best, it rejects the dogmatic declarations of despots and opens our eyes to countless possibilities. And with possibility, there is often hope, something we could use a little bit of these days.
Malcolm Frierson, Professor of History at Riverside City College
Whenever I hear a comedian begin with one of the 5 Ws – who, what, when, where, why – I feel like I’m in for a treat. What’s likely to follow is original inquiry of an established norm that challenges audiences to reconsider the norm’s premise. For example, comedian Roy Wood, Jr. recently shared that gifting electronics is a terrible idea and explained why to those who were immediately curious: you’ll become the recipient’s customer service agent for as long as the gift survives. When he discussed being on the phone with his mom for two hours because the dryer wouldn’t stop texting her phone, all I could think was, I’ve been there!
Clayton Fletcher, Co Author of the ROI of LOL
They say that curiosity killed the cat, but it didn’t kill Katt Williams! Great comedians embrace curiosity as a powerful engine that generates unexpected thoughts and colorful questions that help us to dig deeper, to discover, and to prove/disprove our ideas. Beyond that, curiosity implies an active voice, something is happening right now and is therefore urgent. The sense that the speaker is commenting on a developing story heightens the drama and engages the audience in a more magnetic way.
One of my favorite Katt Williams quotes is: “The past is something for you to learn from and the future is something that you hope is going to happen, but I’m always speaking to my actual fans in present tense.” And he lives by this; his fans know that everything he does starts and ends with authenticity, and that’s why we love him so much.
Curiosity, like that which has made Katt Williams a household name, can help us all ask better questions, make stronger choices, and take better chances, no matter how many lives we have.
David Horning, Founder of Water Cooler Comedy
How do comedians write jokes? How do they find humor in everyday life, even when things go wrong? It starts with a simple question: “What else could be true?” In the 14 years since I walked into my first sketch writing class at New York’s Upright Citizens Brigade, my biggest bombs onstage had one thing in common: I was trying to be funny. But funny isn’t something you force. It’s what happens when you get curious.
Asking “What else could be true?” shifts you out of certainty and into discovery, turning mistakes into material and moments of tension into opportunities for connection. In moments of uncertainty or miscommunication, curiosity helps teams pause, reframe, and see what they might be missing.
The result isn’t just better humor, it’s stronger connection, because people feel understood and in on the joke, not the butt of it.
Liz Joynt Sandberg, Head of the Comedy Arts program at DePaul University
As an improviser, curiosity is the tool I use the most and the muscle I have to train the hardest. This is because curiosity is the antidote to judgement, and judgement is the killer of any collaborative joy we try to share on stage (or often in life!). When I’m judging my scene partner’s ideas, our work crashes and burns before it even has a chance to start (so it’s not even an exciting implosion). Judgement makes it almost impossible to get on the same page and build together. Curiosity on the other hand is the tool that allows me to suspend any disbelief and create something fresh and exciting that neither my partner or I could have made on our own. Judgement shuts us down and puts us firmly in our own limited frame of reference while curiosity opens us up to a myriad of possibilities.
Taking this beyond comedy (something I do often in my role as an applied comedy consultant and learning designer), curiosity is the tool anyone should reach for first when they’re trying to come up with a new way to approach a familiar problem. By suspending judgement through the active practice of curiosity with others, you’re bound to uncover novel ideas and solutions to familiar challenges. And like many improv scenes, they might not work! But they’ll get you unstuck from the familiar ruts that have zero promise or potential.
Ultimately, humor does its best work when it is grounded in curiosity and guided by care.
In moments of tension or uncertainty, the instinct to react can be powerful, but the choice to get curious is what transforms humor from a risk into a resource. It invites us to listen more closely, see more clearly and connect more meaningfully. This National Humor Month, the opportunity is not just to laugh more, but to laugh better, by leading with curiosity, we create space for humor that unites, inspires and moves us forward together.
