SKITS / PLAYS

Skits / Plays or Role Plays take place between two or more people, who act out roles to explore a particular scenario.

It's most useful to help you or your team prepare for unfamiliar or difficult situations. For example, you can use it to practice sales meetings, interviews, presentations, or emotionally difficult conversations, such as when you're resolving conflict.

By acting scenarios like these out, you can explore how other people are likely to respond to different approaches; and you can get a feel for approaches that are likely to work, and for those that might be counter-productive. You can also get a sense of what other people are likely to be thinking and feeling in the situation.

Also, by preparing for a situation using skits or role-play, you build up experience and self-confidence with handling the situation in real life, and you can develop quick and instinctively correct reactions to situations. This means that you'll react effectively as situations evolve, rather than making mistakes or becoming overwhelmed by events.

You can also use skits or plays to spark brainstorming sessions, to improve communication between team members, and to see problems or situations from different perspectives.

How to use Skits or Plays

It is easy to set up and run a skit / play session. It will help to follow the five steps below.

1. Identify the situation: To start, gather people together, introduce the problem, and encourage an open discussion to uncover all of the relevant issues. This will help people to start thinking about the problem before the skit-play begins.

If you're in a group and people are unfamiliar with each other, consider doing some icebreaker exercises beforehand.

2 Add Details: Next, set up a scenario in enough detail for it to feel "real." Make sure that everyone is clear about the problem that you're trying to work through, and that they know what you want to achieve by the end of the session.

3. Assign Roles:Once you've set the scene, identify the various fictional characters involved in the scenario. Some of these may be people who have to deal with the situation when it actually happens (for example, salespeople). Others will represent people who are supportive or hostile, depending on the scenario (for example, an angry client).

Once you've identified these roles, allocate them to the people involved in your exercise; they should use their imagination to put themselves inside the minds of the people that they're representing. This involves trying to understand their perspectives, goals, motivations, and feelings when they enter the situation. 

4. Act out the scenario: Each person can then assume their role, and act out the situation, trying different approaches where necessary. It can be useful if the scenarios build up in intensity. For instance, if the aim of your role-play is to practice a sales meeting, the person playing the role of the potential client could start as an ideal client, and, through a series of scenarios, could become increasingly hostile and difficult. You could then test and practice different approaches for handling situations, so that you can give participants experience in handling them.

5. Discuss what you have learned:  When you finish the role-play, discuss what you've learned, so that you or the people involved can learn from the experience.

For example, if you're using it as part of a training exercise, you could lead a discussion on the scenarios you have explored, and ask for written summaries of observations and conclusions from everyone who was involved.

Some people feel threatened or nervous when asked to role-play, because it involves acting. This can make them feel silly, or that they've been put on the spot. To make role-playing less threatening, start with a demonstration. Hand two "actors" a prepared script, give them a few minutes to prepare, and have them act out the role-play in front of the rest of the group. This approach is more likely to succeed if you choose two outgoing people, or if you're one of the actors in the demonstration.

Another technique for helping people feel more comfortable is to allow them to coach you during the demonstration. For instance, if you're playing the role of a customer service representative who's dealing with an angry customer, people could suggest what you should do to make things right.