New Assignment: Role Plays

Part 1. Role Plays
Counselor
The class is divided into groups of three. The role play implies that each group works on one and the same problem. The problem is that John, the employee, is always late and a manager, counselor, attempts to tackles this problem and talks to John. These roles are performed by two students in the group, whereas the third student performs the role of facilitator, who attempts to smooth the situation if the counselor and the client cannot come to agreement or slipping to misleading path of counseling. At this point, it is important to lay emphasis on the fact that the manager performs the role of the counselor and performs the counseling session, whereas the employee is supposed to have a behavioral problem, being always late, and the facilitator will coach and provide feedback to the manager to help in counseling.
The role play is based on the situation in which John, the employee is always late and the manager takes the decision to conduct the counseling session to change the behavior of John. Three students involved in the play work together on the problem. At first they receive the description of the situation. Leaflets students receive contain detailed information on John’s behavior patterns:
John is late regularly. Normally he comes 10-20 minutes after the work has started. He comes in time very seldom. Within the last week, John was late three days out of five working days. On Monday, he came at 8.15 AM, on Tuesday, he came at 8.10 AM, on Wednesday, he came at 8.00 AM, on Thursday, he came at 8.20 AM, on Friday, he came at 7.58 AM.
What is the problem in John’s behavior? How would you tackle this problem and what strategies would you suggest to help John to change his behavior?
John: Consider causes of your problem, what factors influence your behavior, how can you change your behavior and decide whether you need/want to do it.
Manager/counselor: Identify the problem in John’s behavior; talk to John to uncover his problem; reveal causes of his behavior and develop possible solutions and action plan to help John to improve his behavior. You may use the assistance of the facilitator but remember that you are the counselor and it is up to you to decide the action plan and counseling strategy.
Facilitator: You perform the role of a coach; you train the counselor and help him to work out the effective counseling strategy; provide recommendations on John’s case but you should not interfere into the work of the counselor with the client.
Client
The role play involves three students. The class is divided into groups of three students. Each student performs his or her role. There are three roles in each group: a manager or counselor, an employee, and a facilitator or coach. The groups of three students work on the following problem: Emily’s performance tends to deteriorate and the productivity of her work drops consistently. Emily is an employee, whose performance deteriorates and she needs counseling session to tackle her problem successfully. In this regard, the manager and the facilitator should work together to elaborate the effective and plausible solution. At the same time, Emily should focus on her problem and, primarily, she needs to recognize that she has a problem.
The role play is grounded on the following situation:
Emily has deteriorated her performance consistently within the last month. A month ago she assembled 15 items per day. Since the beginning of the last month, her performance has started to deteriorate and the productivity of Emily’s work has dropped substantially. At the beginning of the month, she assembled 12-13 items per day. In a week, she assembled 10 items per day, four days a week, and only one day she managed to assemble 13 items; the third week was another downturn in her productivity for she assembled 8-10 items per day. The last week she persisted to assemble 8-10 items per day. The manager is dissatisfied with the productivity of Emily for he/she knows that she can work much better and at the moment she works twice as bad as she used to just a month ago. The manager talks to Emily and Emily has to undergo the counseling session to change her behavior and to improve her performance. Otherwise, she may lose her job.
Emily: identify your problem; think carefully of reasons for and causes of your problem; consider what factors, both internal and external could influence the change in your behavior; consider whether the change is irrevocable and how you can act to preserve you job; think over possible reaction of your manager and you response to the manager; be aware that you should preserve your job and you cannot just quit it.
Manager/counselor: you are dissatisfied with the work of Emily; talk to Emily to identify her problem and look for possible reasons for her problem; you may talk to Emily as well as you may use the assistance of counselor to meet your goals in the counseling session.
Facilitator: study the case carefully and collaborate with the counselor to help him/her to identify the problem, its causes and to elaborate possible solutions to the problem avoiding interfering into the counseling session.