A Role Play that can be used while practicing Assertiveness Skills.
Brief for Rajesh:
You are an investment banking manager – your job consists of investing for a large Multinational firm into the various financial service business. Your entire day comprises mostly of meeting various people and guiding their investment decisions. However, your meetings mostly start around 11 in the morning. Ideally you would like to start your day by discussing the day’s plan of action with your subordinate Amit. But Amit does not come to office on time. He is invariably late everyday. You have politely discussed this issue with Amit on several occasions but he always has some excuse or the other ready. You have now decided to be more assertive with him and demand an explanation about his coming late. You want to tell him the importance that the first two hours in the morning hold for you and convince him to be in office on time everyday.
Brief for Amit:
You work as an Assistant Manager – Investments for a Multinational firm dealing with financial services. You work till very late hours in the evening on a daily basis. This being the case, you believe that you should be allowed to reach office slightly later than the normal office timings in the morning. However, your boss Rajesh does not agree with it. He has repeatedly been questioning you over this issue. You usually make some excuse or the other to avoid a conflict. But now you feel that the situation is getting out of hand. You have decided that the next time Rajesh complains of your being late to office, you will tell him that you arrive late because of the late hours you keep everyday.
Facilitators Debrief
- Who initiated the conversation Rajesh or Amit?
- What was the behavior of the initiator? How can you say that?
- What was the impact of the initiators behavior on the remaining part of the conversation?
- This was a situation where the boss needed the subordinate to follow a particular course of action, how could the situation be better handled by Rajesh. – (State what you want clearly with justifiable reasons, use appropriate body language to have full impact and thank the person at the end of the conversation for agreeing to what you wish for.)