Communication training
This concept aims to give a specific profession the ability to develop the art of communication within a relevant realm. Leaders, sales persons, coaches, doctors and many others including students can benefit from this training method .
Cases that are relevant to the reality of the particpating group are created, and may focus on feedback, challenging conversations, sales talks or negotiations. Whatever the framework the ‘other’ role will be performed by an actor. There are several options for this setup, but the essential parts are the communication training and the reflection afterwards. The person in the hot-spot starts: how did it go? were any reactions within him/herself provoked by the ‘other’ person? Colleagues in the roles of observers will give feedback from a professional perspective, guided by a feedback template. The actor will give feedback based on his or her experience whilst playing the ‘other’ role during the session. Roles are then switched to give everyone the opportunity to learn both from training and by observation.
Why not let simply let the participants train via role play among themselves? Well, not everyone is comfortable with acting. The Energy Drama concept allows the participant to depart from her/himself exploring their own profession, while the actor provides the opposite acting part. The actor gives the whole experience a sense of reality. Even though the setting is a mere construction, treal emotions and intellectual challanges will emerge during the session which allows the participant to learn and translate the experience to real life.
ÅF Academy
When we at AF decided on an obligatory course for all our leaders and started to do the outlines, we soon realisied we wanted the practical training to be as realistic as possible. The answer was improvisational theatre. Having contacted a few different suppliers the choice fell on Energy Drama. We ourselves did the case outlines, went through the material together with Beatrice Hennings and agreed on the following set-up: four cases in groups of four framed by an introduction and summery.
I’m very pleased with the set-up and with Energy Drama’s ability in the implementation of the exercise. We can tell that our leaders appreciate this training component from the evaluations after each course. To give some exemples;
”Very good. Being an engineer one easily tend to view the world in black and wite. This brought a new perspective. Everything isn’t always so obvious. One needs to be flexible and a good listener.”
The feedback/reflection sessions after the case scenarios within the group were useful. A good way to learn and practice situations of confrontation.
”This was really meaningful and great practise! Excellent!”
Tore Helgeson, previous Headmaster of ÅF Academy