This reflection addresses a key question that trainers face when considering the inclusion of simulation – or role play as it is more commonly known in the UK – for training and development purposes. While it is commonly acknowledged, and evidenced, that interactivity is a useful approach to skills development, and that in-context scenarios have (context and construct) validity, the decision about whether to include external role players as opposed to relying on internal staff resources or delegate participation remains an important educational – and financial – discussion. In the current climate most trainers recognise that skills integration is important, and that theoretical or procedural knowledge in itself is generally not the end goal unless it can be applied to the actual work environment in a meaningful way.
This of course reflects other ‘skills’ training – we might reasonably be astounded if a driving examination, say, could be ‘passed’ without any demonstration of ability to drive a vehicle safely. In that sense the trainee’s ability to perform in context or apply theoretical knowledge to an actual situation is important. In any customer or colleague facing environment it’s hard to identify a situation where interpersonal skills, and the ability to flexibly and appropriately balance organisational goals and/or specialist knowledge with the other person’s expectations, are not important. This maps educational trends in problem based learning (PBL), a methodology that is well represented in the literature, encouraging the individual to multi-task and apply ‘knowledge’ or expertise in a relevant context. Results of assessments, eg in a medical context, suggest that not all candidates or staff with good ‘knowledge’ respond well in an interpersonal situation.
In assessment conditions, eg job interviews or professional examinations where stakes are high, some individuals struggle to demonstrate skills in context. Whether for teaching or assessment purposes role play is a recognised means of providing a context in which staff can show and develop their ability. Whether your situation is formative (personal professional feedback and development) or summative (high stakes progression hurdles) role play can help you to develop staff and identify areas that both are positive and needing reflection or reconsideration. So, let’s consider role play as a method.
Role play has a long history – several decades in the UK – of being a means to consider, examine and reflect on personal performance. Not as a ‘substitute’ for the authentic encounter with clients, but as a safe preparation for or review of that encounter. There are obvious and frequently cited with parallels with flight simulation. Role play is acknowledged internationally, and across literally hundreds of industry sectors, as a good way to help participants engage with, and embed, their learning. It is a well-established educational principle that for skills based activities (with actions) experiential rather than ‘blackboard learning’ is the most effective means of improving individual performance. As alluded to earlier it’s not possible to learn to drive from books alone, you must practice in a car to make sense of the theoretical actions. This method is hence routinely in used in counselling, education, law, medicine, hospitality, retail, telecommunications and management training etc.
While most businesses recognise the value of situational learning, the role play methodology is sometimes attempted using the organisation’s own resources, eg internal staff, or more typically the training course participants themselves to ‘role play with each other’. The general premise here is that one person takes their own professional role, while the other plays a protagonist to suit the course themes, eg an angry customer, an underperforming colleague and so on. While there is of course some merit in ‘putting the boot on the other foot’ (ie experiencing the customer or other colleague’s perspective, experiencing empathy etc), unless this actually a core aim of the training event then the method is often of limited educational value.
There is historic myth in sectors of the training industry that that ‘anyone can have a go at role play’, and even today this perception can persist. Role playing to a high standard though requires a sophisticated and particular skill-set, demanding professional training and an educational knowledge particular to the simulation remit. On that basis the value of external role players is increasingly recognised as adding real value to interactive training where the client wants to maximise both the immediate and ongoing benefit to their staff. The value of the external role player, and the qualities that differentiate them from a course participant, are discussed below. These reflections are informed by 20 years of experience as a trainer working with external role play in medical and corporate sectors, and from having extensively researched, published and presented the optimisation of this methodology.
Valuing the participant
Investment in an external resource, at a fundamental level, signals to attendees that their organisation takes their learning seriously. It adds gravitas. New faces in the room make the dynamic more plausible (customers and clients are, after all, generally not acquaintances of the staff) and more vibrant. The message is that experts have been secured because the participants are valued. They will not have to do ‘DIY’ role plays, but will be guided through what is often a novel process by seasoned professionals.
Confidence
Not everyone enjoys or is comfortable with (or indeed capable of) plausibly acting a role. While some more extrovert participants might be keen to ‘act’, experience shows that a far greater number of delegates are not comfortable with the performance and characterisation requirement. They subsequently report that working with external role players provides an extra degree of comfort. With external staff present they won’t be asked to create a character that differs to their own (ie their usual professional role), or be exposed as ‘weak actors’. The professional is there to provide the characterisation service, freeing the participant to focus on his/her learning.
Authenticity
Training days typically take place away from the delegate’s ‘normal’ physical environment. Participants are additionally observed, and without the usual ‘props’ that they have to hand when doing their job. That being given, the success of the role play experience therefore hinges entirely on the ability of the role player to ‘play’ the character authentically enough to hook and gain buy-in from the delegate. Participants who have role played with external role players frequently feedback that it was being faced with a person they didn’t know, who was highly credible, that engaged them in the action to the extent that they ‘forgot’ about the environmental factors and felt the dilemma to be real.
This is equally true of role players taking staff roles in the interaction, a common occurrence in courses featuring aspects of interactive management, such as leadership, appraisal and so on. Sufficient business experience and research into the language, culture and values of the client’s organisation enables role players to play colleagues from within the organisation. It is worth mentioning this, as sometimes this is an area where it might be most tempting to substitute the external role player for a delegate.
While an occasionally a particular delegate might have performance skills, their plausibility will inevitably be compromised by the group knowing that the ‘distressed client’ is really eg, ‘Joe who’s worked in the parts department for 10 years’ or ‘Samina who heads up purchasing’. Most courses involve introductions and team/group exercises prior to role play, so even if the delegates happen to be new acquaintances they do know each other to be colleagues.
It has also been observed that confident participants keen to ‘show off their acting’ lean towards over-dramatisation, which can prove difficult in terms if the learning. Shyer participants may fail to complete the interaction if they feel embarrassed by having to play an unfamiliar role. Teams who know each other, or delegates who have bonded on a course may be tempted to ‘play it easy’ to help’ their ‘friend’ or to ensure that their own experience reciprocally lacks substantial challenge. In a worst case scenario a lapse into a slightly comedic performance to ‘have fun’ or ‘stitch up’ a colleague can be awkward and inappropriate for all concerned.
These are real risks, and in my experience the majority of worry expressed up front by participants about role play is rooted in memories of or tales of this type of previous negative experience. If you ask people to undertake a skilled task that they have not been trained or professionally prepared for, the consequences are hardly unsurprising. A more serious one, as detailed below, is safety.
Safety….and de-personalisation
Safety is a primary concern, and must be respected in interpersonal skills training. While theoretically feedback on, say, communication technique, should be taken in the same spirit as, say, feedback on a procedural skill or practical technique, participants on courses can view the kind of competencies prompted by role play scenarios as more personal. While there is no direct correlation between ‘niceness, kindness etc’ and ‘ability to communicate effectively at work’ course delegates may feel more sensitised in this scenario than in straightforward knowledge/information enhancing fields.
Participants exposing both strengths and areas for improvement need to feel secure in order to benefit from and internalise learning in both domains. There is a risk that neither compliments nor recommendations for change will be embedded if the environment is not neutral, and the participant has any cause to question safety or bias. Simulations often focus on challenges, so this is of particular importance.
The external role player can help with safety, in that s/he lacks bias, prior knowledge of, or assumption about the delegates. If recruited externally, s/he is not a course participant trying to ‘learn on the day’ while simultaneously preparing to role play against a person s/he may well already have an actual or perceived history with (positive or negative). Nor will the external role player have developed an opinion of any delegate, or have personal feelings about him/her, either personally or in terms of his/her job description. The sole aim on the day is the task, and the person who matters is the delegate, who should always start with a ‘clean sheet’.
Role play scenarios tend towards managing difficult, worrying or sensitive situations. We rarely need to invest limited training time practicing that which is intuitive or obviously easy. Examples of course content might therefore be encountering problematic or distressed clients, situations of conflict, awkward negotiation and tension, management of staff problems such as poor performance remedial coaching, bullying, grievances, complaints and so on. Without the luxury of external role players it is therefore possible, for any of us as trainers, to unwittingly ask a delegate to play a protagonist that is too ‘close to home’ for them at that time.
This possibility - ie the raising of personal negative experience - needs managing on every course routinely, but the added stakes of potentially asking someone to actually, (and publically) create and ‘play/show’ a character that reflects a distressing personal life story is real. I know someone who, on attending a course without external role players, had been ‘instructed’ to role play a staff member who’d been harassed. She had herself unfortunately been a victim of deeply unpleasant bullying in a past job. While she was comfortable with role playing her own professional (manager) role, and said she’d have found that useful, the requirement of ‘inventing a victim’ was, in the context of her experience, inappropriate and distressing. As a result she left that training event early and was (understandably) wary of any future training event.
The trainer has enough to consider on the day without this added risk of exposure. The external role player moderates this risk. While an individual delegate may have reservations about re-visiting a work scenario they have previously encountered, at least they are not required to ‘be’ anything beyond themselves at work, or play anything unexpected.
Playing level of character
The professional role player, if recruited from a reputable organisation# should have been trained to play any level of emotion or challenge that best suits the training day’s learning outcomes. S/he (unlike the delegate) will have had advance access to the course materials and outcomes, and additionally be familiar with the learning objectives and any relevant theoretical or psychological models that the trainer plans to use. This is relevant to the feedback point later.
In terms of the role, a particular character’s feelings are often revealed though subtle non-verbal and verbal cues and gestures, and it is undoubtedly a skill to position these correctly. The type of emotion displayed by an ‘angry’ character could, for example, be directed by the trainer. S/he could ask the role player to positions the aggression on a one to ten scale, or express his/her preference for internalised cold anger or more expressive verbalised anger. The social class, mental capability, educational level and expectations of the character can be cued (in line with the trainer’s objectives) with a professional role player to suit the needs of the individual delegate. The professional role player is a tool that the trainer can programme to ensure that the client’s investment in the course is rewarded by focussed, needs-based role plays.
Flexing and educational prompting
Role play is an educational tool. It is not – and was never intended as – a direct substitute for authentic experience. Scenarios are constructed and manipulated for specific educational purposes. The external role player throughout the scenario has a teacher’s eye on meeting the learning outcomes of the course. S/he will be conversant with the trainer and client’s aims, and any teaching that has been delivered in advance of arriving (eg procedures, models, tools the company’s preferred methods…). That being the case s/he will flex in role to achieve two educational necessities:
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Rewarding a candidate’s good practice or application of what has been taught with a change in the role played character’s behaviour. That is to say the role player will never be so caught up in the ‘acting’ that the delegate’s own efforts become secondary. If a delegate demonstrates a positive skill, the role player will respond to that skill accordingly, so the trainer can afterwards evidence the impact of the delegate’s positive behaviour.
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Adapting in role to account for the level of confidence/ability of the individual delegate. If a candidate is under-confident, or struggling, the experienced role player can ‘tone down’ to help them through a sticky moment and maximise the chance of them benefiting from the experience. If a candidate looses his/her way the role player can offer a subtle ‘prompt’ to pick up the action. Conversely if a candidate is doing so well that there is little or no challenge or new learning to be gained, the role player can adjust their character to provide a stretch and a ‘win’.
These are teaching skills not typically found in course delegates whose expertise normally lies in a field other than education.
Support for the trainer
The external role player supports the trainer as a colleague. It’s a second pair of eyes and ears, in what is often a complex environment. As a trainer I find the addition of an such a professional invaluable for moderation, support, checking and safety on my own courses.
Critical feedback and recommendations
Timely feedback is always the main focus of a scenario. The primary benefit of the role player is provision of objective, evidenced feedback from the unique perspective of the simulated customer, client or colleague. In ‘real life’ this feedback is unavailable in that moment, or that level of detail. This covers not just how the character felt and responded, but why. The role player during the role play is noting, and remembering, strategies and words that the delegate used, and the impact that they had on what happened next. Role play simulation is the only environment in which this experience can be contextualised, shared and analysed. This differentiates a professional. S/he can evidence the learning, and, importantly, make realistic (and expert) recommendations for change.
Retention, and ongoing value
Multi-source evidence from course evaluations and academic research is clear in that ‘doing’ through role play is the most valuable and memorable element of skills based training. There is only a point in investing in a course if your delegates subsequently put the learning into practice in their working environment. They need to remember what they already do that works well, and how to maximise that advantage. Equally they need to internalise the new strategies they experimented with that worked, and recall which recommendations could enhance their productivity and job satisfaction. Retention is high for role play, compared to other methods, so learning in activatable with sustainable benefit.
I am involved in providing role players and methodological advice to other organisations, so one might question my partiality, but passion for this method is borne of my own positive experiences and years of highly supportive feedback from learners. There is a cost implication, and in the current economic climate the inclusion of an extra member of staff for your workshop needs justification. In the light of the above, the question is not so much ‘can you afford to?’, but ‘can you afford not to?’
