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Role plays

By Tim Baynes (January 2008 Issue)
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Role plays are situations in which sales people take on the profiles of specific characters in a setting. These are designed primarily to build first-person experience in a safe and supportive environment. Role play is widely acknowledged as a powerful teaching technique in face-to-face teaching.

I think most people would broadly agree that they do play a valuable role in training – if you get them right.

What follows are some ideas and experiences that I’ve gained over the last 10 years, around how to make this form of action learning work hard for you when training your sales teams.

Action learning – as old as time

Learning by doing is not a new concept: “Knowledge must come through action; you can have no test which is not fanciful, save by trial” – Sophocles

And more recently: “We learn by example and by direct experience because there are real limits to the adequacy of verbal instruction” – Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking, 2005.

Despite this advice, most sales people, and indeed trainers, have their role play horror stories that they delight in sharing with other sales people and trainers with whom they work.

Safe set-ups

A set-up is the instruction and introduction given to any group of participants who are about to go through a role play.

Sloppy set-ups are often at the heart of the problem with prejudice and the understandable anxiety around role-playing, especially in front of your peers. We are more likely to get buy-in and co-operation if we are explicit about:

  • What we are going to do
  • Why we are doing it
  • How we are going to do it, and, of huge importance, what the outcome will be for each individual.

Yes, but it is not real!

Sometimes, after the exercise the participant will say: “Well of course it would not be like that” or “I would not do that in front of the customer”.

The likelihood is they might, based on research that was completed some time back; the tension an individual feels was measured when in role play, compared to a real meeting.

It was found that tension in role play was much higher. This ‘pressure cooker’ situation of role play drives sales behaviours, both bad and good, very quickly to the fore. These can be picked by the trainer and contestant and used as an opportunity for fast and actionable feedback; including drawing attention to what was working, which gives the player the conscious opportunity to repeat the behaviour and enjoy the result. There is no failure – only feedback.

Feedback needs to be crisp and simple about what was working and why, what could be better and how.

Reviewing after the actual session, rather than standing round a monitor in a group, makes the experience more palatable and gives the individual time for a thorough review of his or her performance.

Self help

Creating coaching ‘triads’ – seller, buyer and an observer – offers the advantage of moving more quickly through a schedule of activity. Everyone takes it in turns at each role and thus develops the habit of giving actionable feedback.

A habit with some

I have been fortunate enough to work with several teams where the manager makes role play an integral part of a weekly sales meeting. The habit is underpinned when the manager leads by example and participates.

Some teams go further still, by including real customers in the role plays, providing the whole event with a real zest of reality. Customers are more often than not pleased to be involved.

Pushing back? Push on

There are some occasions when, in spite of preparation and a team that is prepared to have a go, someone will push back and act up. Whoever is running the role play needs to quickly intercede and move on.

Often, when the participant is tackled about why he/she played up or did not play at all, it turns out to be nothing to do with the training or practice session.

Tim Baynes is head of learning and development at MSN International. He can be contacted at tbaynes@microsoft.com

 

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