Role-play and Real-play

Read more: blog posts about role-play | case study

We’ve been using professional actors to help us bring human interaction to life in our training programmes for well over 10 years.

As with all our work, it is important to put theory into practice, test it, and learn from direct feedback on how our behaviour impacts on others.

We have a consistent and established team of actors to work with. We only use actors who have made business work a profession, who are sensitive to the pressures of organisational life, and who are skilled in giving feedback.

The way we work with this approach breaks down into three broad approaches:

Role play

Designed to explore common themes within a learning programme, we present managers and employees with a scenario that involves a difficult meeting with an individual, played by an actor.

After some preparation time, the meeting takes place - perhaps a difficult performance issue, some interpersonal conflict that needs to be resolved, or even broaching an issue with a customer or more senior manager. The rest of the group observe, and then give feedback as part of a facilitated discussion.

Scenarios are designed for specific clients and specific issues by our training consultants, who will often visit the workplace to discuss appropriate scenarios and work in partnership with our clients to flesh the scenarios out.

Real play

Similar to above, but participants prepare a scenario they would like to practise in the role-play. Because of the expertise of our actors, they are able to adopt the characteristics of an individual based on the brief they are given.

This is a really powerful tools, with participants frequently returning to work with renewed confidence and focus, and completing the meeting “for real”.

Forum theatre

Another very engaging twist on the role-play approach, forum theatre presents a lower risk opportunity for a group to work with real behaviour.

Two actors play out a scenario - again, normally bespoke, in front of the group. Group members are asked to guide and coach the individuals in the scenario on the their behaviour, to influence or negotiate with more impact.

Quite often, one or two participants can be encouraged to take the place of one of the actors to demonstrate and experiment with their own ideas!

Read some blog posts about role-play, a case study, or please get in touch to discuss how we could help you with this approach to experiential learning.