Skip to main content

How a Professional Role Player can help you become an Excellent Communicator.

 


Remember the last time you moved house? You were probably willing to put in quite some planning before the big move. You had to organise packing, finish up matters from your old home, set up the new house. Moving requires a lot of detailed planning.

Planning is just as vital when it comes to having a critical conversation with another person. Yet, strangely, very few people put in the time or effort to prepare before they jump into important conversations.

Take it from a professional role player… do not wing tough conversations!  

Do not just say to yourself, I’m a pretty good communicator. I can just wing telling this person their contract won’t be renewed. I can just loosely navigate this conversation with my director about her lack of vision. I can just tell my colleague that he sucks at meeting deadlines. Yeah, that’ll go over well.

When conversations go badly, we spend time thinking about all the things we should have said. But what if you’d take the time to think about those things beforehand?  

Yes… Prepare! Practice! Role Play!

At InterACT we believe that Role-Playing with a Professional Actor now, will save you from kicking yourself later. 

The most important conversations in your life require respect for your wants and the wants of others, and you show respect by preparing with a professional.

Here’s how you can use role-play with an actor to make it through even the toughest conversations:

  • The actor can challenge you to keep the conversation on track.
  • The actor can play out different responses to your main points.
  •  You can explore how you respond to these possible scenarios.
  • You can practice how to best respond if you get blindsided with new information or a very unexpected response?
  • You can rehearse as long as you feel as confident and prepared as possible.

If you want to have a good conversation, one of the best ways to prepare is to role-play and play the scene out. Walking through various scenarios helps you develop well-constructed, strategic responses. 

It can also prevent you from saying or doing something that places you in a new scene you were hoping to avoid. 

Naturally, life happens. In reality, you still might end up missing some cues and feeling like you could have done it better. 

But it will never feel like your first conversation... 


Labels:

Comments

Post a comment

Popular posts from this blog

3 Benefits of making role play part of training

Role-play long has been a common training method among military branches, emergency response groups, and companies where quick decision-making is highly valued. So why not in the world of business training?  Over the last few years, it seems role-play has been incorporated more often in business training curricula, and for good reason. For example, sales teams that continually engage in role-playing are more likely to outperform their non-role-playing competitors. And managers that get to experience authentic role play sessions turn out to be stronger and more confident leaders.  Benefits of Role-Play Here are just a few of the benefits of making role-play a part of your business training: 1. It builds confidence:  When your team role-plays, you can throw any number of situations at them. Role-playing provides a safe environment to encounter these scenarios for the first time, which builds confidence in team members that can help them in their day-to-day ro
Post a comment
Read more

Emotions at work? Yes please!

  "I was biting my tongue the whole time"  "Gosh, he makes my blood boil"  "I wish she would just get off my back"  “There is a knot in my stomach”   These are all common idioms which are related to where emotions can settle in our body. We especially notice it during those tricky conversations.  But weirdly enough, even though our body is telling us exactly what is going on, we hardly listen to it.  A missed opportunity because they are crucial signals that remind you to use your communication skills and our emotional intelligence.  What to do?    -        *  Do you notice tension in your body? Do you feel your heart beat faster? You may find it an exciting conversation. Ask yourself: What do I find exciting or difficult? -        *  State what you see or feel. Such as: "I notice my heart is beating fast and there is a knot in my stomach. I feel uncomfortable.”   -       *   Examine your own judgment of emotions. What do you th
Post a comment
Read more

5 reasons role play fails

Role playing is one of the most effective learning methods. Especially when you choose to work with a professional actor. Surprisingly it’s also one of the most misused techniques.  So what goes wrong? Well, pay attention and learn which 5 failures make role play fail miserably: 1. Unsafe practice   environment Most people are not dying of enthusiasm to do a role play simulation. That is why its extremely important to invest time and effort in creating a safe practice environment. Never ever push people intro a role play scenario if they really don't want to. They wont learn a thing and will only be more reluctant to do so in the future. 2. No alignment between learning goals and role play.  The role play has to be completely dedicated to the learning goal of the participant. Unfortunately sometimes people are eager to change the role play into an interesting theatrical scene. Perhaps fun to look at, but not very helpful to the participant. No role play s
Post a comment
Read more