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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. 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 roles.
  2. 2. It develops great listening skills: Good role-playing requires good listening skills. In addition to understanding the words the other person is saying, it’s important to pay attention to body language and non-verbal clues. Better to have your team develop these skills while role-playing than when they’re trying to perform in the real world.
  3. 3. Creative problem-solving: No matter how outlandish a situation you create in a controlled environment, generally, something even more bizarre is bound to happen on the job. Role-playing will at least give your team the chance to get some experience in handling difficult situations and in developing creative problem-solving skills.

How to Start Role-Playing
While most organizations prefer to hire a professional facilitator for the most effective role-play, here are a few tips for doing it yourself:
  • Use actual locations: The best role-play is as realistic as possible. Put participants in the physical locations where they actually would experience the scenarios you’re trying to replicate, whether that’s the boardroom, the warehouse, or an executive’s office.
  • Videotape your role-play: Videotaping the participants in role-playing scenarios is a valuable teaching tool. It allows people to see themselves—and their strengths and weaknesses, which can be quite powerful. It also allows them (and you) to “record” improvement as they progress.
  • Imitate real-world scenarios: This is perhaps one of the easiest forms of role-play training to execute yourself. Give the “customers” or “clients” a personality profile and list of objectives that the trainee doesn’t know about. Make the goal to determine the “customer’s” objectives.

Getting an authentic role-play experience from your team may be difficult to do on your own. Bring in consultants and professional actors to get the training your team deserves. At InterACT we design and deliver experiential learning solutions that use the power of role play to help people interACT even better. Contact us here and we are happy to tell you more.  

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