Week 43: Partnering the Roleplay

This technique of “Partnering the Role Play” is used in refresher courses and in advanced trainings. This technique needs a lot of preparation beforehand. Each of the trainees is asked to prepare a short role play with facts of a mediated but unsettled case. Each trainee is asked to bring three sets of this role play. They are asked to choose two partners. A group of three is asked to be formed. The trainee who had prepared the role play, and who was a mediator in actual mediation will be asked to play the role of one of the parties. The mediation goes on. The impasse situation which the trainee as a mediator could not overcome in actual mediation, will be projected by the same trainee to the mediator during the course of the role play. The trainee mediator gets to know, if the co-trainee, as mediator, uses different techniques, to handle the impasse, or takes precaution in such a way that all possible situations of impasse are carefully foreseen and effectively blocked or avoided.

ADVANTAGES

1. Such role plays will help the trainees in learning different techniques from co-trainees.
2. Trainees will understand shortfalls if any in their professionalism.
3. They will also know as to how a problem can be handled or tackled from different angles.
4. Trainees will also know how different solutions can be evolved.
5. Trainees get actively involved.
6. Trainees will learn the technique of preparing short role plays, which can help them in future if they choose to become trainers.

GROUND RULES

Trainer should inform the trainees to get in to the roles assigned to them, and take the role play very seriously. Trainees must be given a time slot for the role play. If trainees feel shortage of time, they may be permitted to continue with the role play before or after the training hours.

CONCLUSION

The two participants in each group have to be asked to mention in writing  (i) what did they learn from the mediator (ii) What did they not like in the mediation process (iii) What more could have been done by the mediator.

Trainees must be asked to write short answers with bullet points.

Advantage

While answering the questions given to them as mentioned above, trainees will reflect on the entire process. They take mediation very seriously. They try to observe everything. They also come to know that in actual mediations, disputing parties, participants, advocates will all be watching them carefully, and may be making mental note of very same aspects as being done by them now. Even the trainee who has played the role of mediator will work on improvement based on the constructive criticism offered by the co-trainees. This exercise will help the trainees in taking their professionalism to greater levels.

TRAINER’S PREPARATION

Trainer must see to it that each of the trainees is asked to prepare and bring at least one role play with facts of the case mediated by them but not settled. It is ideal to send a note to all the trainees along with the training schedule, so that on the very first day this exercise can begin. Where it is not possible to inform them before hand, at least on the very first day of training, they should be informed, so that from the second day the role play can begin.

Trainer must explain the objective of this technique to the trainees.

There may be situations where all the trainees may not bring the role plays as per the instructions given.

As an abundant caution it is desirable that the trainer brings one or two role plays  narrating facts of the mediated but unsettled case, and see how differently the trainees handle it.

Trainer must have sufficient copies of the following questionnaire to be answered by the trainees playing the role of disputing parties.

Each of the following questions must be written on different pages:

(i) What did they learn from the mediator?

(ii) What did they not like in the mediation process ?

(iii) What more could have been done by the mediator?

Thus the questionnaire will have three papers, with single question on each paper.

FORMAT

Page 1

At the end of the role play please answer in brief the following questions:-

Please Note: Answer to each question should not be in  more than two lines.

What did you  learn from the mediator?   (1)   (2)   (3)   (4)   (5)

Page 2

What did you not like in the mediation process ?   (1)   (2)   (3)   (4)   (5)

Page 3

What more could have been done by the mediator?   (1)   (2)   (3)   (4)   (5)

“Don’t complain. Just work harder.

Randy Pausch-  Co- Author of “The Last Lecture”

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