Role plays are a fun and effective way to build professional skills and confidence. The Leader’s Svetlana Graudt takes a closer look at their application in Moscow’s training programs.

Imagine you are playing a game. You and your colleagues are divided into two groups. Each group has its own sign language. Now try letting each other know you are glad your companies are merging. It is difficult to do if you do not pay very close attention to what your counterparts are trying to express through their gestures.

Or, say you are supposed to try your hand at project management. Your client has one extra room in his office and he wants you to think of ways to turn it into a profitable venue. You set down to work with a sheet of paper, markers, a glue stick and a pair of scissors. In exactly 20 minutes you must deliver the result. You come up with the idea of turning the spare room into a fitness club or a bar. But the client says that it wasn’t what he was looking for. He is sorry to inform you that he won’t need your services.

All the while, a trainer closely observed your interaction and later explains your mistakes: you didn’t even inquire about the finishing dates, the client’s desires and other similar requirements. You have failed to meet your client’s needs.

Of course, this is just a game, but in real life your failure to learn your client’s objectives through effective communication and pointed, exhaustive questions may result in months of lost time, to say nothing about thousands of dollars in lost revenues. That’s exactly when training companies come to a businessman’s rescue — they offer various types of trainings where a manager can practice skills and procedures that take place in a working environment. The participants also learn how to deal with an issue that might arise in their line of work. And if the trainee fails — he has failed in a safe place and not with a valued customer or sensitive client.

“During the NCO (New Consultant Orientation) at our company, we were asked to develop a business strategy for company N. In order to solve this case, we had to receive information about the company through numerous interviews with different managers from there. We had a limited amount of time to do that. And the managers were either saying too little or could not keep their mouths shut — they talked about everything else but business,” says Mikhail Belzer, an associate with management-consulting company A.T. Kearney. “It was very valuable for me to learn how to handle such people, how to get the information I need even if I think my question will fall on deaf ears. Role playing allows you to avoid making mistakes in real-life business situations. It’s not a waste of time. In the end, your reaction improves, and it saves your own time and your client’s.”

Specialists agree that that role playing in business trainings is very effective. “This approach does work,” says Georgy Melik-Yeganov, a commercial director with MTI, a training and consulting company. “There’s a business technology, and you need to use it. You go through training, work your way through the situation using an abstract topic and then project it on a real-life situation. Why? If we stop at a lecture, it will be difficult to put to practice your business skills and technologies. You need to do it in real life, to role play it.”

Yelena Will-Williams, innovations manager and certified trainer specialist at Arsenal school of managers, added that these training exercises are most valuable for the instant feedback trainees receive during or immediately after the game. “Feedback is very important. It must be included in the role play,” she said, “It doesn’t matter if there are only three people involved in a role play, the feedback must be to the point and very constructive. People learn better when someone points them in the right direction, and when someone praises them.”

According to the specialized Website www.trainings.ru, there are four types of training; those directed at personal development, teamwork, management of others and client relations. Almost all of them include role-playing exercises. For example, every one of 50 trainings offered by Arsenal has elements of role play in it, said Will-Williams.

Role playing exercises are most often included in trainings focused on interviewing, coaching, and sales skills, handling a difficult client, or running a business and interacting with employees at all levels. There are training exercises designed specifically for administrative staff, mid-level managers and top executives.

One of the examples of the latter is the Looking Glass Leadership Program (LGLP) offered in Moscow by the Center for Business Skills Development (CBSD). This fast-paced business simulation followed by intense feedback is designed to help senior-level managers focus on the real changes they need to make in their day-to-day performance.

“Some trainees are a bit skeptical about the whole thing in the beginning. You have 20 years of experience behind you and you think: ‘Can they really tell me anything new that I don’t already know?’ But such skepticism evaporates completely as the simulation progresses. The training helps you to move on [in your professional development],” says Yevgeny Koluzhny, public-programs manager at CBSD and a participant in the LGLP.

Daniel Hill, managing director at Capital Perspective, a magazine about Moscow that comes out every tow months, also took part in the Looking Glass simulation and liked the results. “In general, I think they [role-playing exercises] are an excellent learning tool because they force students to get involved in real problem-solving instead of the traditional ‘note-taking’ that happens is so many classrooms. As someone who has been a business manager for more than 10 years, I can tell you that real business is about confronting unexpected problems and working through them — looking for ‘creative solutions.’”

Currently, many Russian companies, especially banks and successful manufacturers of consumer goods, are going on a training spree, investing more and more money in the development of their personnel. Melik-Yeganov of MTI attributes this to the growing Russian economy. “In the West, training is a must in any large company. Its popularity in Russian companies has grown three to four times since the 1998 crisis. If the tendency for growth of the Russian economy and companies continues, I hope that in two or three years every company will have a training program.”