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Overview (short introduction to the method):

Roleplays help to understand people's reactions, and can give insights into the thoughts and feelings of “opponents”. Roleplays give an opportunity to enact a scenario, practice skills around that scenario, and explore emotional reactions to it while being in a specific role.
Role-play for conflict resolution
(communication with a client, colleague or manager)

Objectives:

Develop communication skills, problem-solving, develop social intelligence and cooperation.
Group size:

6 – 50 participants

Time:

Presentation time – 30-60 min. (depends on information what speaker would like to share). Game time – 60 – 120 min. (depends on the group size, includes the game, discussion, reflection, outcomes writing).

Resources:

Enough space to split the group into smaller sub-groups, paper, pencils, projector, and other materials needed for the specific role-play.

Expected outcomes :

Increased ability of the employees to communicate with each other, find a way out of various situations, solve problems in a civilized way.

Instructions:

  1. Prepare the presentation about conflict types and ways to handle conflict situations.  

  2. Prepare life situations connected with organization or group daily activities which should be discussed and solved during the game. NB! The situation should not represent the real people or organization, but should be similar. It allows to employees to not engage in situation and make decisions “out of the box“. Explain the situation carefully, including the groups represented and the physical layout. If you need people to take on roles ask them to volunteer – never force people to play a role they're uncomfortable with. Give them a few minutes to get into their roles. Ask everyone who is not playing to be active observers.

  3. Employees play and solve the situation.

  4. Stop the roleplay when enough issues have been uncovered, the exercise comes to a natural end or people want to stop. The play should also be stopped if a participant shows great tension or gets too involved.

  5. Have a short break, allow the participants to come out of their roles and then evaluate the exercise.  Evaluation gives participants and observers the chance to assimilate and analyse what has happened and how well they put their skills into effect. Start by asking the players how they felt in their roles. Ask observers for their impressions and then allow discussion. What have people learnt and how will they apply their insights in real life? Discourage comments that tell participants what they should have done. Compliment people for having the courage to participate regardless of how the scenario turned out. These tools are there for learning.

  6. If new insights come up the group might want to try them out in a new exercise rather than talk about what might happen.

  7. The group might come up with common agreement about new solutions or terms of interaction. Write them down and share with all the participants.  Outcomes and rules should be sent to all participants

Variations:

- Presentation can be sent by e-mail to participants preliminary and discuss before the role-play.

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- Participants can propose own situation for the role-play.

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- The reflection can be in small groups or in one whole group (depends on the number of participants).

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- The facilitator could be chosen by the group itself from the group of colleagues.

Reference:

Facilitation Tools for Meetings and Workshops, 2010.   https://seedsforchange.org.uk/tools.pdf

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