Say "role play" at a cycle meeting and watch the room.
Eyes drop. Someone checks their phone. Everyone hopes they will not be picked.
In my experience the problem is rarely the practice itself. It is how the practice is run.
- The role play reps dread:
- One rep performs in front of the whole team.
- The manager plays an impossible doctor.
- Everyone comments at once.
- The mistakes are what people remember.
- The role play that helps:
- Groups of three: rep, doctor, observer.
- A real doctor type from the rep's own territory.
- The rep speaks first, then one strength and one change.
- Run it again straight away, better.
The rule that changed it most for me: go first yourself. When the team sees the manager fumble an objection and try again, the room relaxes. Practice becomes normal.
And one thing I never do: score or rank reps on a role play in front of their peers. That turns practice into a test, and people protect themselves in tests instead of learning.
A rep who fails in a training room on Tuesday does not have to fail in a clinic on Wednesday.
“Practice should be the safest place to fail, not the most public one.”
Lesson 16 of 23 in Step 4: Coaching, with the full guide and a checklist for this week.