The Building Blocks of Collaboration – Role Play

Chapter 10 Role Play and ReflectionIn this assignment, you will role play an example conflict scenario and then answer some questions about your experience. You will also be asked to reflect on some of your own personal experiences.——————————————————————————————————Read the Case: Encouraging Collaboration on page 175 of your textbook. You will get the most value from most of the case studies if you actually act them out as a role play. The only way to improve your conflict management skills is to be put in conflict situations. Role plays are a safe place for you to practice, even if they feel a bit awkward at first. Remember that managing conflict in real life will also feel uncomfortable, so practicing will help you get “comfortable feeling uncomfortable” and build your confidence to handle conflict.Find a friend or family member who is willing to act out the role play with you. You will usually play Joe and find people to play the other characters with you. Have fun with it and ask your fellow participants to challenge you and play up their characters.Alternatively, you may want to form a group of 2 or 3 classmates that can work together on the role plays throughout the course, taking turns at playing different roles.While not as effective, you may also just read the scenario and think about what the possible responses of each character might have and what your response would be. The limitation with this approach is that you will always know what to expect. In real-life conflict scenarios, you will need to think and react quickly to the other party’s behaviour and responses, therefore the role play is highly recommended.——————————————————————————————————