Role-plays. A powerful training tool for the Luxury Retail Industry, and for improving any negotiation.

“One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life and dedicate ourselves to that.” – Joseph Campbell

In 1964, Bob Dylan wrote the famous song The times, they are A-changing.

A protest song, the war in Vietnam was still killing hundreds of people every day, inspired by Irish folk ballads; this Dylan’s composition has influenced generations of young people, with its poignant words about the need for change, and the difficulty of changing.

The world has evolved significantly over the past fifty years and will transform itself even more radically in the next fifty, futurists say.

And yet, humans, as a species, are still the same. With their biases rooted in the subconscious mind, otherwise called reptilian brain and limbic system. With their sense of self extremely invasive and equally fragile. With their countless contradictions hidden by their desire to be coherent and in control of their own world.

Negotiations are complex because, whether we negotiate a billion-dollar deal, the end of a conflict, or the menu of today’s lunch, to align interests, we must first align people. Their egos, their hearts, and their minds.

Selling, which has in it an element of negotiation, is no different, for it takes more than an excellent product at the right conditions to complete a sale, and turn a customer into a loyal client.

I’ve spent a large part of my professional life studying, researching, and practicing negotiations and sales across three continents. As a luxury industry veteran, I’ve had the privilege of doing it with and for some of the world’s most prestigious companies. I’ve negotiated large and complex deals, small and simple agreements, and everything in between. I’ve negotiated with wealthy and powerful individuals and companies, and I’ve learned first-hand the meaning of leverage and lack thereof.

In the past ten years, I’ve deployed all my energies in creating educational tools to help companies and individuals in the Luxury Industry (and not only) improve their sales and negotiation skills, and their leadership as creators of meaningful customer and employee experiences.

My team and I have spared no resources to identify the best tools to impact people at the behavioural level, and I can confidently say that one of the most powerful tools is simulations, otherwise called role-plays, the subject of this newsletter.

In this article, you will find scientific evidence that simulations help create and crystallise new behaviours and clear guidelines to follow should you choose to try role-plays to advance your business and your career.

 WHY ROLE PLAYS?

I can spend hours and hours watching my 8-year-old twins play. It’s amusing. Over the span of an hour, they can be a superhero, an astronaut, a baker, a parent, a thief, and a police officer. There is no limit to their imagination. And when they play, they learn, because that’s how the brain works. If you have any, ask your child to exchange roles: they’ll play the parent, you’ll play the child. You’ll be surprised at how responsible and just they will be. By putting themselves in their parent’s shoes, they’ll change perspective, and understand at a deeper lever the lessons you’ve been trying to impart, apparently unsuccessfully, for months on end. And you may change your perspective too!

Role-playing triggers the secretion of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a substance essential for the growth of brain cells. It lowers the stress hormone, cortisol, increases dopamine, oxytocin, and calms our nervous system. It causes changes in the prefrontal cortex and improves the whole brain integration. It engages lower brain regions (physiological responses, need for safety and security) through physical movement, going up to the limbic system through creative self-expression, self-regulation, emotional involvement, finally reaching the neocortex (the higher section of the brain involved in learning, rational thinking, and impulse control), and motivates the brain to build new neural patterns.

Introducing role-plays in your business may be the most effective step you can take, and it won’t be easy at first.

ROLE-PLAYS IN BUSINESS (and beyond)

Who benefits from practicing simulations? Based on my experience, quite a variety of industries and people.

Luxury retailers are first on the list because there is a theatrical side of their business. Their boutiques are temples where customers experience much more than buying expensive products: they are part of a well-orchestrated ceremony. For this reason, role-plays help sales-associates, and their managers fine tune every move of the ballet, that is their sales ceremony.

B2B sales people also benefit greatly from simulations, for they must conduct complex sales presentations, and rehearsing them in advance helps them expect objections and roadblocks, and practice answering them, to display greater confidence and charisma.

Lawyers, entrepreneurs, and negotiators at large should embrace role-playing as daily practice, yet many of them won’t do it, thinking that to focus only on strategic preparation is enough.

While I agree that strategic preparation (which means getting to know the counterpart and their needs, analysing all the numbers and the variables involved, developing a BATNA etc.) is of paramount importance, without proper rehearsal emotions can take over and jeopardise all the good work done in advance.

The mechanics of simulations:

Organising an efficient and effective role-play is relatively easy; all it takes is:

• Enough people to cover all the roles, and make the simulation realistic (for example, two sales associates, and two customers)
• One or more observers to provide post-simulation feedback
• A clear and realistic script
• A psychologically safe environment (ex: a training room)
• Realistic props and tools (for example, if we are simulating a retail sale, we bring goods and display cabinets, to rehearse the sales ceremony and its gestures and movements)
• A video camera, to enable participants to watch themselves in action
• An open mind and the intention of learning something new about oneself

Once the elements above are in place, we can start our simulation, and this is what we want to observe, test, and improve:

1. Preparation work. Many people experience disappointment in their preparation work once they sit in front of their clients or negotiation counterparts. And it is obviously too late. During a role-play, you can put at test your product knowledge if you are a salesperson, or your Plan B (otherwise called BATNA) if you are a negotiator. The more realistic the simulation, the more you’ll find out whether your preparation work suffices, or if it needs to be improved.
2. Emotion management. Having prepared well for a sale or a negotiation does not mean you’ll be able to manage your emotions. I’ve seen people so nervous they forgot everything they wanted to say. Others walk away in anger from a negotiation against their own best interest. The chances that a change of scenario will trigger a disempowering emotion are so high that role-plays become the only true and necessary antidote.
3. Non-verbal communication. I’ve yet to find someone who, watching a videorecording of their role-play, was not surprised at their facial expressions and body language in general. And didn’t find something to change! Non-verbal communication is tricky because it’s unconscious. Our body keeps “saying” things beyond our awareness, and that is why many sales and negotiations fail (and people lose fortunes playing poker). To know how to align non-verbal with verbal communication is a super-power. One you will gain practicing simulations.
4. Storytelling and verbal communication. In the same fashion as non-verbal communication, I’ve yet to see someone who didn’t find a word, a sentence, or a story to change, cut or add when watching a video of themselves doing a role-play. You can test the effectiveness of your stories during a simulation, and of your current vocabulary. The English language comprises more than a million total words, of which about 170,000 words are in current use, and only 20,000-30,000 words are used by each individual person. There is no reason to think you can’t improve your words selection practicing a simulation with your team.
5. Unlikely or unexpected scenarios. “Everybody has a plan, until they get punched in the face”, once said legendary boxer Mike Tyson. This is what role-playing will prepare you for; the unlikely scenario that will make your preparation work go flying. The more the person playing the counterpart is creative, daring, and immerse in the role, the more unexpected scenarios will pop up.

The cherry on the cake: feed-forward.

Simulations are foremost a precious opportunity to give and receive feedback, which, as they say, is the breakfast of champions. Feedback must be received in religious silence. There is no point arguing or finding justifications when you’re hearing someone talking about your own performance. The only wise thing to do is to take notes, separate the useful information from the useless, and implement a change if need be.

Knowing how to give feedback is also important. You should preferably start from the positive and remember to not criticise for the sake of criticising. The whole point of sharing feedback during a role-play is to help the other person improve, not to show that you’re better or more knowledgeable than them.

You can also choose to rename feedback as feed-forward, as explained by psychologist Paul Cowan. When we give feedback, we look backward, which most of the times means correcting a mistake. Something that makes people defensive. Instead, we can choose to focus on what we would like to see improved or implemented. Hence, instead of saying, “I’ve seen you ask a customer the wrong question” you may rephrase it with “I would like to see what happened if you asked the customer a different question, such as … “

OBSTACLES AND THREATS

Initially, you will find resistance. I use role-plays in each long or short workshop I conduct, and the hardest part is always to get people on-board. Adults have often lost their playfulness, and we need to retrieve it to succeed at it. They also don’t like being exposed, and you must create a climate of psychological safety.

For this reason, I often rely on an upbeat and humoristic presentation style. I’ve noticed that if I spend the first minutes of a session triggering a smile, vibrating positive energy, and engaging participants in a funny group exercise, they will be more likely to take part actively in the following simulations. I also think self-humour helps: if the session leaders can make fun of themselves, participants will find it easier to be exposed.

Another challenge you may find is making every participant to the simulation understand their role.

Observers must observe in silence, take notes, and know how to give feedback.

The people playing the counterpart’s role must “get out of themselves” and embrace acting, so as to see things from the counterpart’s perspective. Actor Benedict Cumberbatch once said that, while he enjoyed playing a character as complex as Sherlock Holmes, there is also “a kickback. I do get affected by it. There’s a sense of being impatient. My mum says I’m much curter with her when I’m filming Sherlock.” Well, that’s what a good role-play should stimulate.

The main characters, the people playing themselves during a simulation, must find the courage to dare try new things and make mistakes. What’s the point in rehearsing a negotiation, or a sale, in advance, if we’re not willing to try something new and see if it works?

Many years into continuous practice make me say that the only potential downside of role-playing is that, at times, it could make people too polished and robotic. I’ve seen it happen rarely, extremely rarely, perhaps once or twice in 10+ years. Certain personality types may use it as an alibi to avoid being in the present moment, and somehow disconnect from the negotiation.

CONCLUSIONS

Whether you’re a solopreneur or manage a large team, I invite you to try simulations. Do it with an open mind and an open heart. Do not expect everyone to jump immediately on the opportunity; be patient and remember that it’s your responsibility to create excitement around it, and a psychologically safe environment.

Also remember that to work their magic, role-plays need to be repeated over and over again. I often speak of a “culture of simulations” to highlight the importance of embedding them into a daily, weekly, or monthly routine.

Lastly, I’d like to highlight once again that the quality of a role-play depends on the quality of the feedback being shared. The more detailed the feedback, the more granular the improvement.

And to conclude, I invite you to listen to the episode of Lux and Friends, where psychologist Paul Cowan, author of the best-selling book “Connecting with Clients: For stronger, more rewarding and longer-lasting client relationships” speaks about turning feedback into feed-forward.

To your success!

Carl Pignataro

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