- You go to a training and fear the roll-playing you will likely have to undergo.
- You are in a training and invited to participate in a roll-playing exercise. You think to yourself, “I will show that I already have a good grasp of this.”
Sound familiar?
On the whole, role-playing is an effective tool to help participants in a training develop interpersonal skills. And yet, we dare to assert that they do not work in the traditional classroom setting. This is because participants do not move into the Learning zone but remain in the Performance zone.
Eduardo Briceño, former CEO of Mindset Works and now a highly regarded speaker, explains in his TedTalk the importance of the learning zone and the performance zone.
Briceño argues that most people and teams understand that there is a Learning Zone and a Performance Zone, but they do not consciously switch between the two zones enough.
There are clear differences between these two zones.
The Learning Zone
In the Learning zone, the goal is to learn and focus on skills that one has not yet mastered. Making mistakes is a requirement in this zone. Learning is about growth and improving future performance. Therefore, the Learning zone should consist of an environment and situation where one takes little risk, so making mistakes in this environment does not have significant consequences.
Briceño believes that three things need to happen to be in the Learning Zone:
- Belief (I can improve)
- Time and effort (I want to improve)
- Deliberate practice (I know how to improve)
Deliberate practice leads to improvement. This type of practice requires a series of different elements, including:
- Breaking down competencies into skills and/or sub-skills
- Pushing oneself out of the comfort zone
- Actively seeking frequent feedback and reflection
- Having someone coach or guide you forward.
Performance Zone
In the Performance zone, the emphasis is on execution, with a focus on the skills one already possesses. Mistakes are minimized in this zone. This is the place where we get things done by applying our practiced skills.
It is important to also receive feedback on what needs improvement in the Performance Zone. By reflecting thoroughly on what happens in the Performance Zone, we gain feedback on how well we master our skills, so that we know what needs more practice.
It is important that both zones are used in our work environment, but the most important thing is to know when.
If we spend too much time in the Performance Zone or all the time, we delay our growth and therefore our performance. We don’t spend time developing the skills we lack to improve our performance.
On the other hand, too much time in the Learning Zone is also harmful. We have no way of testing and therefore getting feedback on how our development is going. It is very possible that our Learning Zone becomes a place where we stay in our comfort zone and limit our ability to move forward.
Unfortunately, we feel a high social risk in many of the environments we find ourselves in today. At school, homework, which is part of the Learning Zone, is graded. This turns these assignments into Performance Zone “tests.”
The same situation can occur at work, where we feel more comfortable within our comfort zone so we make fewer mistakes and do not receive reprimands. In this way, we will never try anything new or different.
We encounter the same challenge when using role-playing during classroom training. Most participants experience role-plays as a Performance Zone test. This creates two types of participants:
- Participants who enjoy doing a role-play with the trainer and/or actor. These participants have the motivation to show that they already have good mastery of the skill being trained and try their best during the role-play to avoid making mistakes. They remain in the Performance Zone during the role-play.
- Participants who fear the role-play. Due to the high social risk they experience, they worry about how making mistakes will be perceived by the other participants. Not only will they be hesitant to make little to no mistakes, they will also miss out on interesting information because their minds are not focused on the training.
It’s time to conclude that role-playing in a classroom format is no longer the way forward.
A PWC study from 2020 proves that role-playing in Virtual Reality is not only more effective than classroom training, but also gives participants up to 4 times more confidence to apply what they have learned in practice.
Virtual Reality: A perfect link between the Learning Zone and the Performance Zone.