Acting Into Culture

Sometime around 2006 (I think)

One of those consultant contracts you dream about. Working with about 45 new managers in a three day workshop to help them be the best they can be as new managers. It was a big organization; people came from all over.

One of the things these managers needed to get better at was interacting with, and selling to clients. Dealing with senior level people. This was not a learn to sell initiative but a full process of development. We had actors playing the role of clients and the managers were split into three groups to figure out the full process of how they would influence the client. Then they had to meet with the client ‘actors’.

However, we also had one actor playing the role of one of the new managers, a participant. She was positioned as a ‘shared services’ person and there wasn’t many of these people as participants, so it was believable that she was not known to others.

Her role was to be a participant with the intent of sharing her experiences of being a shared services person on one of the new manager teams figuring out how to influence these clients. That sharing would occur at the end of the workshop.

We kind of crossed our fingers on this and whoever that actor was; she pulled it off.

At the end of the workshop, the client actors addressed the group, as clients, to let them know who had ‘won’ of the three new manager sub groups. There were cheers, fist pumps and groans. Lots of learning about interacting with clients.

Then our participant actor came to the front. We explained her role; the room got quiet.

She said it was hard to be part of her group. She provided details. She finished by saying she wasn’t sure she would want to work in this organization. The room got quieter.

I remember that quiet best. I imagine some of those participants still do as well.