Role Sketches
From Peacebuilding
Share this page with colleagues
<catboxattop-categories>
- ACTIVITY
- NEGOTIATION
This page is categorised as:
Click to access full category contents.
Rate the contents of this page:
Contents |
Purpose
To practice negotiation.
Time
At least 30 minutes (15/20 minutes on improvisations, 10 minutes of debriefing).
Participants
Four to many.
Materials
- Role cards, explaining roles for each couple of improvisers;
- Flip-chart paper and felt-tipped markers.
Process
I) Introduce the activity and sk for volunteer role-players. Invite others to observe the interaction.
II) Distribute role cards to the first two role-players. Allow time for entering in their role.
III) Let the play start and let actors free to improvise in front of the plenary. Stop the role-players after about 3-5 or 10 minutes (or when appropriate).
IV) Debrief and discuss with the plenary.
V) Repeat the process with other sketches.
Debriefing
Questions you can use to boost discussion include:
How do you feel?
- How do you feel about the activity?
- How do you feel about your performance as a negotiator?
- How did you feel about your partner?
- How do you feel about his/her performance as a negotiator?
- How do you feel about the pairs that acted before/after you?
- How would you describe your emotions through the play?
- To what extent do you feel that the other party acknowledged your emotions?
What happened?
- What happened during the negotiation?
- To what extent do you feel the other party understood you?
- What happened when you saw the others’ performance?
- How did your behaviour change, if any, during your performance?
- How could – or can - you see your emotions playing into your negotiation? And the other party’s emotions?
- What worked for you? What didn’t work?
What did you learn?
- What was the most important learning point of this role-play for you?
- What insights did you get about negotiation?
- How important is it to separate the people from the problem? Why?
- How important is it to focusing on interests, not positions? Why?
- How do emotions play in negotiation?
- To what extent rationality is important in a negotiation?
- How does the local culture/tradition influence or condition this kind of interactions?
How does this relate?
- How does this play relate to the kind of interactions you have in your real life?
- What kind of interactions do you usually have in your home environment that you could see as negotiations?
What if?
- (to volunteers) What if you were to play the other side’s role?
- What if players had 30 minutes instead of 5-10?
- (to volunteers) What if the other party were much older than you?
- What if a mediator would facilitate the interaction?
- What one party was much richer and powerful than the other?
What next?
- What would happen if you could play again the same negotiation?
- What suggestion would you give to somebody who would have to play your same role in the future?
- Considering what you have learned in this activity, how would you behave differently in your workplace? In relationship with the leaders of the Family Associations?
Note
Below you can find some "role sketches" (quick role description for players). You can prepare more of these, more appropriate for the specific context where you are planning to use them.
Some examples of role sketches
Sketch 1 – Husband and wife quarrel
Role 1, husband:
You are Ilyas, 37-year-old agricultural worker (adapt the names to suit the local context, let participants choose). It is 7.00 pm and you have just finished your shift at the farm where you work. It has been a hard day, the farm is harvesting and you and other workers are on a 10-hour-a-day shift since weeks.
You have just returned back home, to find that your wife hasn’t yet prepared dinner. She’s just back with your two kids - they too will have to eat. You are damn hungry and it seems like it will take a couple of hours before you will eat.
This seems to have become routine in your house, your wife doesn’t seem to understand that you need to eat at 7.00 pm.
Role 2, wife:
You are Selma, 34-year-old housewife with a husband and two kids. It is 7.00 pm, you have just rushed home with your two kids, the day has been hot and hard. Your day started at 6.00 am, when you woke up to prepare breakfast for all the family and prepare the kids to go to school. You woke them up, dress up, walked them to school. From there on, you have been running all day to provide the necessities for you family and house.
As usual, in the afternoon you walked the kids to visit their grandmother. She is old and sick, you prepared dinner for her and, on the way back home, you stopped for a while at the park, in order to let the kids meet their friends and play.
Now you rushed home, to find your husband nervous and quarrelling over you because it’s late and dinner is not ready. This seems to have become a routine, he just doesn’t seem to understand that you’ve run the whole day.
Sketch 2: Boss and employee: deadlines and holidays
Role 1: Boss
You are Yoshi, 36-year-old, single. You are managing director of a communication and graphics firm. Your firm is composed of a small team of three creative thinkers and designers plus one administrative and one PR staff. You are working 12-hour-a-day in a row and are engaged 24-7. You do not have time for social life, let alone a relationship! Your firm is your life – and it’s a lot of fun!
Your firm deals with highly aggressive competitors and just being in the market is a daily fight. You ask your staff to be committed to their work, but do not require them to be in the office 8 to 5 as you know that creative staff need the right time and environment to generate ideas. But when it’s needed they shouldn’t watch the clock and be ready to work on weekends.
You are now having a conversation with Haruki, your guy on “virtual reality”. He is managing a major project for an emerging light beverages company, big deal. You noticed he wasn’t much focused on his work in the last couple of weeks and had some delays too. You are keeping an eye on him as you cannot afford one of your staff being like that!
Interestingly, he is now asking for 10 days off, starting from the next week. He probably wants to go on holiday with his family. You do not know if to laugh or get real angry – this guy does not seem to understand that he has a deadline for the end of the month for his project. It is time to straighten up this guy!
Role 2: Employee
You are Haruki, 33-year-old, married with two kids. You work for a graphics and communication emerging firm, where you are in charge of “virtual reality” projects. Your boss, Yoshi, is very demanding with you and the rest of the staff. He is on his own, working 24-7 and seeming to pretend you do the same. To do it justice, you have learned a lot with him and you feel lucky that you can work in such a creative team as the one he has created. You are now managing a major project, with a deadline for the end of the month.
Your younger child has been sick for the last couple of weeks; she got a viral disease that doesn’t seem to get away. To complicate things, your older boy is having a hard time: you have just moved to a different neighbourhood, he misses his old friends and he is having trouble in making new ones.
Your wife is working too, so you manage kids between the two of you, the nanny and the kindergarten. She has decided to take 10 days off starting from the next week – she thinks the kids need more of their parents’ care; she’s asked you to do the same.
You are now facing Yoshi, who doesn’t seem very friendly. You need to ask him ten days off from the next week. You are confident you can respect your project deadline for the end of the month.
Sketch 3: Lucia and Elisabetta at the library
Role1: Lucia
You are Lucia, 25-year-old, with a degree in Philosophy. You have just started working at the local public library as part-time staff. You have always been a bright student, with a passion for understanding, hardly content with simple answers. At the University, you were into a multiplicity of cultural activities, ranging from reading groups to concerts, or meetings with authors. You love reading, learning and discussing with others. You family has nurtured your hunger for learning.
Due to your passionate approach, you have always had arguments with professors and peers. Having spent a few weeks at the library now, you are concerned because few people seem to use the library – especially youth seem to desert it. You hardly believe it: all these books and almost nobody to read them! You think that something has to be done to get the library closer to the people outside. You are already brainstorming initiatives to do that. You are going to speak with the library director, Elisabetta, who has been on the job for over 20 years. You want to expose her to your ideas and persuade her to support them.
Role2: Elisabetta
You are Elisabetta, 56-year-old, Director at the pblic library where you have worked for 27 years. You are a reserved person with a sincere love for your work. You are disappointed as most of the young people seem not interested in reading; most of the youth never access the library. You have seen this phenomenon growing with time: “when I was young” you recall “young people read books and used to frequent the library, they were even making friends here!” You complain that new generations spend too much time watching television and do not seem interested in books. In the past years you have taken part to several initiatives to promote the public library and stimulate people to use it, especially the youth - with little results. A bit tired and disillusioned now, your stand is “the library is here, who’s interested can come, who’s not interested is better out”.
You are now facing Lucia. She has been recently hired and seems a brilliant young woman. Though, she might be a little too optimist as for people people’s interest in using the library. You have seen her brooding for some time over the need to think new initiatives for involving people more with the library.
