Benefits of Role Playing

Oliver Martin points out how role plays in negotiation, mediation, and conflict resolution training cement our learning. How can you get great practical benefits from role plays?

To learn conflict resolution skills that you can use at work and in your personal life, please visit our Alternative Dispute Resolution Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.

To improve your negotiation skills and get the results you want while negotiating, please visit our Become a Powerful Negotiator Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.

To gain skills to handle difficult conversations and difficult people with confidence, please visit our Dealing With Difficult People Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.

Benefits of Role Playing

Below is the transcript of this video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xO7v2cT-RY

{Transcript}

One of the best ways to learn how to negotiate, mediate, or deal with difficult people is through role play. Many people enjoy role play; however, some people are a bit anxious at first. Regardless of how they feel going into the role play, what we’ve seen in our workshops is that participants consistently leave feeling that the role play helped to cement their learning and was very effective.

You see, you can spend several hours, days, weeks, months, even years learning all the concepts and theories behind negotiation, mediation, and dealing with difficult people. Then you can imagine what it would be like if you were in the situation—or you can take some time to learn the theories and concepts and then actually do it. Practice it.

Take a negotiation role play, for example. By actually doing it and practicing it, you get to experience it, feel it, and understand it better. There’s a proverb that says, “I listen and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand.”

I’m reminded of a participant who attended our workshop a few months ago. She came up to me immediately after a role play and said, “Oliver, wow… that felt so real.” So real that it brought up some strong emotion. I looked at her and said, “Okay, hold on to that—capture that—and think about it. Was it something that the other person did? Or perhaps it was something within you that got triggered?” Once you understand that, share it with the other parties—the other people in the role play, the coaches, and the instructors—and really analyze it, dissect it, and pull out all the learning from that.

You see, we could have told her what was going to happen in that role play through a lecture. However, my sense is that she wouldn’t have felt it as much or understood it as well until she was actually in it and got to experience it. “I listen and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand.”

Andragogy is the method and practice of how adults learn. Adults learn best through experience. Unlike children, the adults who come into our workshops bring a wealth of workplace and life experience. It’s through role play—and the debrief after the role play—that we’re able to incorporate those experiences and really explore and analyze them.

Take negotiation again, for example. By being in the negotiation role play, a participant gets to try out new techniques and concepts they’ve just learned. They get to experiment and perhaps try things they wouldn’t normally try. And here’s the important part—they get feedback from the other party. What worked? What could have been improved? What could have been tried differently?

Now, I know some people are still a bit anxious about doing a role play, but let me tell you: in my years of seeing people do role plays, the biggest challenge we have is getting them to stop. They get so involved in the role play that we have to remind them it’s not real—it’s not a real negotiation, it’s not a real mediation.

So the next time you’re involved in a role play—whether it’s at a workshop or with a colleague or friend, maybe role-playing how you’ll approach your boss for a raise or promotion—keep these things in mind:

My name is Oliver Martin, and I’m an instructor with the Stitt Feld Handy Group. Visit us at www.sfhgroup.com. Also, feel free to leave your comments below on your thoughts on role play.

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