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How Role Playing Can Aid With Team Building.

By: Brian Middle Click author's name for more of his/her articles

Role-playing scenarios can go wrong and an otherwise helpful scenario can end up becoming an awkward skit. Worse yet, a badly executed role-play activity could truly be detrimental to the confidence of the employees.

How Role Playing Scenarios Go Wrong
One of the major reasons why role-plays do not work out is because of the attitude or emotional state of the staff. What you ought to first realize is that many people are exceptionally nervous at the prospect of performing in front of other staff. Statistically speaking, more staff are afraid of speaking before a large group than they are of death! Not only ought to players contend with their fears, but they also may have had or heard of some bad experiences with these kinds of activities. You as the trainer or boss ought to take steps to eliminate the fears of your staff. The participants ought to be more motivated on the project aim itself and not so unduly anxious about how they appear to others.

What might help is to be exceptionally clear in your presentation about what the aim of the role playing activity represents. The more complicated the scenario the less enjoyable it may possibly likely be. If you hold off until one final "show" then naturally everyone will be terrified of performing. However, holding a number role-playing scenarios does well to demystify the experience, so that everyone wants to try the activity. Feel free to break down complicated scenarios into more than one role-playing activity. There's no need to save time, if it is going to cause more confusion. You are not working with thespians here!

Tips on Conducting Role-Playing Activities
Usually role-playing scenarios do not go well when one or more staff do not know what they're supposed to be doing. Just because they may have a non specific suggestion from the team leader, doesn't mean they have enough to work with. These aren't actors who can be given a situation and run with itâ€”most staff will do exactly what you will and wait for more facts. Give each participant as much facts as they will need. Too little will leave a player scratching their head, while too much will be forgotten. Simplicity is the key here.

You might also allow your staff to solicit help from other team members or to push a sort of "pause" button whenever they are stumped with a scenario. Remember that role-playing is largely a group activity and ought to not be considered a true performance, as if there was a way to fail this audition. It is for the benefit of everyone involved. Leaving the scenario open to thoughts lets everyone feel part of the process, and can possibly ease some of the anxiety of participating in more scenarios to come. (If everyone else has tried it...I guess I ought to too!)

Role-playing is an effective practice that can help build a team and teach new staff about thecorporation. It merely requires that you as the team boss, guide new staff through the process.

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