Let's Role Play It! By Malcolm Andrews
Every so often, it’s normal to come to a halt – a paralyzing moment of not knowing what to do - every so often during a coaching session, don’t you think? When I started my Executive Coaching practice, I would sit worrying that we’d somehow overstepped an invisible line when this happened, and the clock ticked accusingly in deafening judgement.
But when we’re talking about something which is difficult to pin down or our attempt to describe what we’re feeling misses the point, it’s often then, after we have come to a stop and there’s a silence, that we arrive at new levels of insight and understanding.
I’ve learnt that if, when we reach a silence, as long at the next thing that happens doesn’t come from me, there’s a good chance that it will produce a profound insight and we move forward.
But very occasionally if we come to a stop, I will go first and suggest we role play the scenario.
The power of role-play
I believe it’s worthwhile considering the differences between applying Role Play during a Coaching session as an aid to self-awareness and its introduction during Training as a learning tool.
The Coaching scenario is between the client who initiates the whole process by engaging the Coach with whom, let’s say, they seek to explore and resolve a specific issue that is concerning them. It’s all about the Client. Coaching is driven by the individual client who will be encouraged to follow a process of self-discovery, facilitated by the Coach. The client who typically initiates the engagement, may perceive and describe it as unstructured and informal, even though there is an agreed number of sessions and an expected outcome. The structure is not explicit like a training.
The Training scenario is typically initiated by a third party, HR, Head Office, an IT Supplier i.e. not the participants. For example, the Director of a company may identify a need for the sales team to improve Key Client Engagement. They will hire or allocate a Trainer to deliver an agreed number of sessions and then direct the sales teams to show up. It’s all about the business. On the other hand, Training can be described as structured and therefore formal. The Trainer has been engaged to deliver a specified outcome and the participants have been selected to be the practitioners of that outcome.
These differences are quite important because:
To position role play during a Coaching session, the Coach has to have the buy-in of the Client. We need them to be as close to ‘authentic’ as possible in order to experience the feelings and actions that are coming up in the conversation and then, acknowledge and describe the changes which occur when they try it differently.
In a training session, although behaviour is a factor, it is not the most important one. The ‘issue’ we are seeking to address may be corporate: improved client communication let’s say or a new Purchasing system.
Even when we are videoing role plays for, in a Negotiation workshop, the emphasis is clearly on individual performance and how they are using the tools and techniques…not how they are as a person.
…In trainings
In training, the role play must be meticulously planned because we want to get the new learning out there and tried out used. Everything from the ‘warm social opening’ to the ‘cold, icy silences’; the ‘engaged body language’ to the ‘probing questions’. We’re looking for evidence of use of the tools and techniques and how they worked.
I don’t know about you but my experience with role play is quite positive because we get down to revisiting actual feelings and reactions in authentic situations about which we don’t feel right. It’s a chance to do things differently, working through them in detail, reconstructing feelings and actions.
I first encountered role play as a learning tool during training in Negotiation workshops, Participants would plan their strategies in groups and play them out in simulated negotiations.
The power of role play was often illuminating during these events because the teams would of course, use a set piece gambit which they had planned to test out on the other team but find that they got a completely unexpected reaction…sometimes good and sometimes bad but often the complete opposite of what they had intended.
For example, to show their good intentions, one negotiating team offered to make a concession on price only to be met with extreme suspicion from the other side across the table. The warm atmosphere that they had set at the start of the negotiation turn suddenly frosty.
So, the team offering the concession took a time out, and drew back into a cold, tough position which, guess what, brought a better response from the other side who were much more comfortable with this more ‘normal’ behaviour!
All of which gave me a good excuse to ask ‘what did we learn from what just happened?’
My point is that while Role Play only creates a simulated reality, participants can still behave in ways which reflect their genuine reactions to events which they encounter and learn from that. This reaction must in turn be handled by their counterparts in the role play reactions. All of which provides spontaneous responses and genuine learning.
… In coaching
In Coaching, Role Playing can’t be planned. It has to be spontaneous. The client is describing a scenario to illustrate a point but perhaps we’re not quite getting to the crux of the challenge.
Cue : `How about we Role Play it?’
This ‘real’ behaviour acted out in a safe ‘offline’ environment triggering authentic reactions which must be dealt with under pressure also offers benefits in the Coaching context. There’s no need to rush it just maybe a few words to set the scene and space to allow them to find themselves in the scene and let them go.
Let me share another example using Negotiation, a good skill to practice using Role Play and if it can be recorded, the playback is a powerful coaching tool facilitating coaching, discussion, and feedback.
I once delivered a training workshop for a group which included their Boss.
During the sessions, there was a lot of discussion about the use of emotion as a persuasion technique.
The Boss, who clearly had a very good rapport with his team, expressed the view that Europeans were at a disadvantage when they negotiated in Asia because they showed too much emotion and he was always very careful to avoid this.
Later, we had a role play to see how the group were applying the new learning. It also allowed me to demonstrate shadowing – observing our clients in their day-to-day operations - which we can use with our coaching clients.
Looking up at the screen the Boss stared in amazement as he saw himself with both elbows on the table, arms pivoting backwards and forwards and his hands outstretched as he hectored the other team.
He genuinely had no idea that he had been doing what we saw but his team gently reassured him that he did…often.
The boss laughed so much that we had to take a break and he became my best client.
Common to the use of Role Play in both Coaching and Training scenarios is feedback
For that reason, the Coach or the Trainer will be paying very close attention to what’s being said, how the tools are being used, what difference they made and what opportunities to use the tools were missed?
For the Coaching Client role play gives them an opportunity to recreate feelings and try out different approaches.
For training participants, it’s a break from the input sessions and an opportunity to demonstrate new skills.
In fact, I think it can be easier to apply role play in the Coaching scenario because we’re not trying to influence the outcome. Importantly, the outcome of a Coaching session will be what it is whereas with training there are potentially right or wrong endings and fixed expectations.
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I work with Senior Executives to build a personal communication style which adds to their feelings of confidence & ease when collaborating with peers, greater fulfilment when being proactive with stakeholders and satisfaction from acknowledging their personal growth as they move up in their career.
