Role Play

Role play is a technique where a participant takes an ordinary or extraordinary situation from their real life, and rehearses it by interacting with a role-play actor who plays the part of the other person that would be involved in the situation.

This can be:
• in advance of the situation arising, so that the participant is practiced and
  ready for the real situation when it does occur
• when the participant wishes to re-run an event to see how it could have been
  handled more effectively and so position themselves for when the situation
  does occur again
• for any possible event not yet occurring but where the participant needs to be
  properly equipped to deal effectively should it occur at some point in the future.

Role play is a very powerful tool to establish an individual's skills, and for building both skill levels and confidence by practicing in a live interactive way and receiving detailed and informative feedback.

The Role taken by the business actor is to use particular behaviours to test out the situation for the participant. For example, the participant might ask the actor "this time, would you burst into tears", or "now let's try with you getting angry", or "try silence this time".

The technique can be used across all key organisational activities, and is particularly useful for rehearsing situations such as appraisal, discipline & grievance, conflict resolution, handling difficult situations, and change management.

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