The Way You Practice Is The Way You Play

My college adviser shared with me the 6 P's to success: Previous Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance. Which served me well as an individual contributor but when I became a manager, I began to witness that what people said they could do did not match how they actually performed. The audio didn't match the video and it masked the areas that could use improvement. So I had two dilemmas: first, how could I uncover the areas that could use development and second, how do we work on mastering those skills? 

The elite athletes study and practice in preparation for their contests. When I thought about some of my own best and worst performances, there was a strong correlation between when I had and hadn't prepared and practiced. In business, just like any athlete, the way you practice the game is the way you will play the game. Few people have the business discipline to track their own progress, look for opportunities to develop and practice their skills; and for me to be a good coach, I can't ask how you would swing the bat, I need to observe you taking practice swings.

What you say is just as important as it is when you say it and  how you say it.

In coaching, questions are great to see what is in someone's head and to understand what they know. Role-playing, though, is an important coaching skill to uncover how they apply that knowledge. When it comes to interviewing candidates and training my teams, I do a lot of role-playing. It tells me a lot about their competencies as well as their confidence. Sales people who are not confident or practiced in their job will say, "This is how I would speak..." or "This is what I would say in that situation...". The 'would' is the problem word in that statement. I don't want to know what you would do, I want to know how you actually do it. 

So how do you create a good practice pitch?

Have a Practice Field and a Curriculum
The obvious place is the office. You need to create both regular time and space for practicing. It is our laboratory and it needs to be a safe place to experiment, try out new techniques and get feedback. After all, I'd rather fail in front of my colleagues than in front of the client. A positive and supportive environment is what good managers and colleagues should provide for one another. Don't expect perfection; embrace failure and support everyone's efforts.

The curriculum is the harder part. Review your work processes and identify what are the core as well as the challenge areas. For sales and business development, work around the buyer's journey; for account management, the client journey; for HR or managers, the employee journey; etc. Working around the elements of any journey is a great place to start. As a manager, coming up with fresh and relevant content week after week is difficult. There are third party sources that can help but sometimes the great ideas can come from your team. Delegate the topic, give them time to prepare and have them come up with exercises. Practice with the topic leaders before they execute with the whole team. It is also a great way to see from where your future leadership may come.

Practice, Practice, Practice
At first, role-playing can feel contrived. That's because it is. So is doing 30 sit-ups but there's no doubt that strengthening your core has a lot of daily benefits. Practice role-playing often enough so that the team becomes comfortable with it and good at it. It will depend on your team and what you want to train. With my teams, we train on a topic each week but only role-play once a month. It is a good cadence for my crew and the more they practice, the more natural it feels. As you make it a part of your culture, when new people come on board, the more quickly you can tap into the collective knowledge of the team. You'll hear some really great responses, you'll hear some really bad ones and a lot of average ones in between. In the laboratory, you can hear and feel what works and what doesn't.

Make Outlines, Not Scripts
Use the role-play to help create an outline instead of a script. Scripts don't allow for interpretation and adaptability for each unique situation. Nor do they help when we stumble. An outline uses bullet points with 1-5 words to anchor and serve as a reference to key points at a glance. I can add filler stories and color as necessary but it also keeps me on track. An outline helps the delivery sound more conversational but polished, dynamic but focused. If I miss smaller details, it doesn't matter, let it go; your audience has no idea what you left out.

Don't Take It Personally
You need role-playing partners that will lob you easy ones as well as test you with hard ones. If one of your colleagues plays it tough with you, that's ok. Whether your partner is honestly trying to make you look bad or sincerely testing you to make you stronger, smile and stay composed. Be honest about what you know and don't know. Learn from it and improve. Honesty is far more compelling than brilliance. You will have a client or customer one day that will be a complete bear. You need to prepare for those days and if you do this right, your worst customer calls will be with your colleagues and not your actual clients. 

Reflect
When you're done with the role-play, get feedback. In every conversation, there is a sender and a receiver. The messages we send aren't always received in the same way we intended and vice versus, the messages we received weren't always what the sender intended. Seek to clarify, how did you feel? How did your partner feel? Did you come across as competent and credible? How did they respond? How did you respond to their response? It's rare that your client will give you really honest feedback (some will if you genuinely ask) so take the opportunity to reflect, listen and improve. Be careful that you don't become defensive or try to justify what you did or discredit what the other person did in the role-play. Listen. Take notes. Smile. Say thank you. As you get comfortable, take the opportunity to test other approaches and see if you can get a different role-played response.

Finally, if you don't have a team or a manager that practices role-playing (or you simply need an ad hoc session), seek out a mentor or an experienced peer that is willing to help. You don't need elaborate scenarios to get started. Take a simple situation and get in the moment and go. Don't make excuses or play around with too many assumptions; play it out and react to the other person. A conversation may not go as you had scripted but neither do things in real life... and that's why we practice. We practice for the eventualities.

Role-playing isn't just for client facing roles. It helps practice and develop your interpersonal skills. Have you ever had to approach one of your colleagues who has ripe body odor or wears too much perfume? How about confronting the employee who constantly places blame on others or brings out the worst in the team? How about the colleague that flirts too much? Have you had to let someone go that you didn't want to? Role-play it. To constantly develop my management skills, I've role-played with my HR team, with other managers, and external coaches to help me improve my approach. It helps me become more confident when I can see (outline), say (things in my own language), hear (my own voice and their reaction) and get feedback (post mortem) before game time. Not that this is a game. It's not. It's real life and you're dealing with real people with real feelings. That's why it is really important to practice, to prepare you for the various situations you may encounter and how you will play it at game time. 

What do you think about what I wrote? Agree? Disagree? Had a similar experience? Please add your comments below and thanks for reading!

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