Assignment Overview
o Walk around the class to help facilitate role-play interactions between classmates, answer questions, provide clarifications, etc.
o Prepare 10-minute follow-up discussion and questions... This is when you will ask what the class thought, find out what strategies each Manager and Employee used (and why), field questions from the audience, describe the ending (i.e., explain what happened and/or perhaps what you wished had happened differently), and ensure classmates understand how your Role Play connects to that week's chapter/skill.
o This part is just as important as your actual Role-Play, so please take it seriously and come prepared to lead a class-wide discussion.
Ingredients of a Successful Role-Play
I am looking for approximately TWO single-spaced pages in which you tell an incomplete story that has 2 sides/perspectives - one page for the manager and one page for the employee. Please include details on the following information (only if relevant):
- Individual backgrounds (Manager & Employee)
o Experience, personality, etc.
- Their relationship
- Task/responsibilities
- Unresolved conflict and tension
o Be creative here... is it due to: Miscommunication? Difference in attitudes? Perceived inequality? Motivation/goals? Etc...
o Provide a clear setup for why this one-on-one meeting needs to take place
Create some complexity, layered issues... generate enough drama to warrant a 10-minute discussion between these two characters
- Uncertainty regarding what each character should do next
o This is really important: Create 1-2 thought-provoking questions at the end for each role
These questions should frame the major/central issues... what must each character be asking themselves before this meeting takes place? Provide just enough information to give your classmates a chance to think critically about what their options are AND the consequences, without making it too obvious as to what they should do next.
Other Important Things to Consider as You Write
- Make it easy for your classmates to understand their role... that means that they'll need to know all the facts and personal info FROM THEIR CHARACTER'S UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE... including their character's background, what's important to them, how they feel about the conflict, and why this meeting needs to take place, etc. Make all that info transparent and easy to understand!
o The fun occurs when your classmates become the characters and interact (i.e., work together, each based on their own perspective with their own goals/agendas) to resolve the conflict together.... like a Landord vs a Renter (See that role-play I uploaded to Canvas for a reference).
- Give the manager a chance to tap into/apply/address the skill from your chapter
- Remember that Role-Plays can also be between a manager and his/her boss, such as VP or Senior Manager
- Don't use headers. Instead, create a free-flowing narrative... tell a story!
- When writing both roles, there will likely be information and details that overlap. It's okay to use the same information for both roles (copy-and-paste), as long as each character's perspective remains distinct/unique.
- Based on a question posed in class, it may be easier to write both roles in the 3rd person (e.g., Jack and Jill)
o Either way, make sure to name all the characters so that everyone knows their own names and each other's and can tell the difference between the two.
- Make sure to change all names, including the company!!!