Darcy I just get annoyed when people can’t admit what their function is within an organisation. HR people seem to have the biggest difficulty in doing this.

As an aside… I did another pyschometric test the other day for my own amusement… an internal one identical to the one I did when I joined the company. The difference in results was unbelievable… the HR manager was almost dumbfounded.

did he fire you on the basis of it TSY?

Haha, no because it only makes up 10% of the decision process etc etc.. geetee can give you a brochure with the sales spiel 😉

It was actually pretty accurate and if they read between the lines would have told them I have plenty of time for internetting.

I was once made to attend a drumming workshop for team building reasons 🙁

chopper666 in his cubicle….

Anyone care to suggest to these guys that their assessment process is rubbish?

MI5 Selection Process

Pretty sure they make extensive use of role plays as part of the assessment process as well.

Can I just ask what’s wrong with getting paid to piss around on some drums and play a song or whatever? Life is more fun when you don’t see it as a competition to be the most cynical person in the room. 😉

Christ. I’m going to agree with geetee again.
I’ve done management training at a FTSE100 company 😉 that used role play.. it was actually very useful.

grum… nothing’s really wrong with it… except the work you should be doing still isn’t getting done!

Says the guy posting on STW… 😆

I was sent for some training in Chicago. At 9.30am on day 1 the door burst open and in ran a very enthusiastic woman covered in lycra.

We spent 20 mins doing aerobics to ‘energise’ us for our day ahead. The brits fell about laughing. The locals were really earnest about the whole thing.

It happened every day for two weeks.

Luckily where I work at the moment hasn’t thought up any new ways to waste my time. I get to do as I please on that front.

Anyway my personality profile tells me I have to be sceptical about such things. It’s what it says, I’m not in control of it, I’ll need some training to change.

If they can’t demonstrate to me that it’ll be 100% efficient and strategically beneficial I won’t attend though.

In truth.. it’s all about being tailored to the right audiance… interrogation role play for the SAS… pretty useful.
Teaching me about ‘the internal customer’ sod-off with your management BS!

In truth.. it’s all about being tailored to the right audiance… interrogation role play for the SAS… pretty useful.

After all that we really do agree! 😀

Seriously this is what I’ve been trying to say all along. Sorry we were so far apart to begin with.

We did looooooads of role-play in foundation Family Therapy training (before we get to practice on real families), which was hugely interesting and very helpful. I remember a really fascinating one where I ‘played’ a young patient I have known and one of my colleagues ‘played’ the mental health problem, ie gave it a voice and a personality.

We did role play in (NHS) managment training and mentoring students/new starters. That was well rubbish.

YMMV significantly though, depending on the ‘trainer’ of our roleplay, and the social skills and job satisfaction/burnout/sociopathy of the people roleplaying.

Says the guy posting on STW…

Zing!

I know I shouldn’t be so naive, but I’m often surprised when very prolific posters on this site reveal that they are in fact in paid employment.

Not having a dig or anything, just saying.

I know geetee… you’re an effective communicator 😉

I have been at management conferences where the training withh doctors have brought in a huge rope and had us all line up and play tug of war…

‘what happens if you pull against each other… nothing’

‘But what happens if you all pull in the same direction…’

I think I heard the phrase paradigm shift at least 100 times that day.

I had to do a ‘middle management’ course once and part of it was run by Lawrence Olivier’s son who is also an actor we had to ‘act out’ scenarios of how we’d deal with our staff behaving badly, then we had to be trees swaying in the wind to calm down and get rid of the negative energy we’d produced in the room……

*sighs* of course I’m a much better person for it…. 🙄

Had an ‘away day’ year…..hide and seek in the morning was a bit strange and if it ever happens again I shall be hiding in such a place that ensures I am not found for the rest of the day (I’ll be in car and on way home by the time they count to 10). Afternoon wasnt much better until we had to describe the day by using lego, yes, lego!! Nobody else could make anything with lego as I needed it all to make a huge c@*k

Chakaping.. it’s almost embarrassing really 😳

I had to do a ‘middle management’ course once and part of it was run by Lawrence Olivier’s son who is also an actor we had to ‘act out’ scenarios of how we’d deal with our staff behaving badly

Brilliant. He didn’t actually tell you all his dad was Olivier, did he?

MI5 might, but you wouldn’t catch 6 using roleplay. They already know everything about you before they tap you on the shoulder.

Anyone else just do the questionnaire off the MI5 link?

Apparently my

responses suggest that your approach may be well suited to the role of an Intelligence Officer in the Security Service. We encourage you to go ahead and apply.

🙂

I just got the ‘Your responses suggest that your approach may be well suited to the role of an Intelligence Officer in the Security Service’ 😯

**** me they’ll let anyone in these days 😉

**** me they’ll let anyone in these days

There’s quite a bit more to it than that.

MI5 might, but you wouldn’t catch 6 using roleplay. They already know everything about you before they tap you on the shoulder.

Been through the process have we?

Really!!! I thought I was in 🙄

My missus once had a job for a few weeks as a phone pest, cold calling to get double glazing leads.

They used to have to stand on the desks, dance & sing silly songs each day before they started and they had even more ‘whooping & hollering’ to do if any of them actually managed to con someone to have a salesman call.

Really!!! I thought I was in

Sorry mate I meant to include the wink 😉 to show it was a joke.

Judging by the following on their jobs page, being an “intelligence officer” in MI5 is up there with being an “ambient replenishment officer” at Asda.

Intelligence Officer 18.04.2011 London £24,750

Carpenters/Multi-Traders 08.04.2011 UK Based From £27,250 (depending on skills and relevant experience) + overtime + benefits

Thing is i’d be really good at keeping secrets and national security as 10 minutes after been told them i’d forget 😐 But i’d guess it make a change from leaving the laptop or usb stick on the train 😉

geetee1972 – Member

Anyone care to suggest to these guys that their assessment process is rubbish?

MI5 Selection Process

Pretty sure they make extensive use of role plays as part of the assessment process as well.

I will, a relic of the cold war, their job is to create fear in politics and the general public in order to expand their own empire, largely staffed by over educated idiots.
Actually thinking about it, pretending to do stuff would be perfect for their recruitment process.

At work we have to undertake regular paediatric life support training, or if you’re really unfortunate the advanced PLS course. Both of these include some scenario/role play sessions, TBH it is a laugh more than anything else but when I did PLS back in March the final assessment was a pass/fail, being assessed by an A&E consultant & senior nurse. Good training day really.

I will, a relic of the cold war, their job is to create fear in politics and the general public in order to expand their own empire, largely staffed by over educated idiots.

Idiot

I had to do a ‘middle management’ course once and part of it was run by Lawrence Olivier’s son

Well that’s three of us on this thread who have been to one of his training gigs 🙂

Idiot

+1

I once found myself on the other side of the fence. We were interviewing for a customer liaison specialist (customer service in other words) and I at the allotted time had to phone the interview room and pretend to be an irate customer wondering where my shipment was. The interviewee had been given a sheet previously with the scenario on it and was discussing the potential solutions with the interviewer, but wasn’t expecting the call so it was a good assessment of how well they could dela with the out of the blue scenario.

But the best bit for me was that halfway through the call the heavens opened outside and shoddy building that i work in, pretty quickly there was a huge wet patch forming on the suspended ceiling. So i said I was going to have to go to get a bucket to catch the drips, and rang off. A few minutes later the interviewer rang back and asked me what i thought etc. and then complimented me on throwing in a curve ball scenario to see how they’d react. **** wasn’t capable of looking out of his window to see the biblical flood developing and thought I’d made it up.

Well that’s three of us on this thread who have been to one of his training gigs

Sounds like he’s probably doing ok for himself then.

Or they all work together and his gigs are so successful that they still don’t realise they spend all day talking to each other online?

For some reason our ‘training dept’ seem to think role play should be part of every train session we do!!!

Plus ‘ice breaker’ games

Last training I attended, included 10 others in same position as myself.

All worked together for 20+ years.

Told trainer to ‘shove it’ in a very good, united way and cut 3 hours from the training day…………… Which was nice 😀

Have done role playing both with members of the seminar playing the role and professional simulators.

Used as a way of illustrating scenarios and how to deal with them the difference was huge. The professional simulators were fantastic, able to rewind into the scenario, change how they reacted etc.

I found the professional ran one very useful and can think of several bits of advice I took from it which I use regularly.

Done well they can be good but done badly the only team building is in the pub after as everyone curse about how bad and how much of a waste if time it was.

A subject dear to my heart. After too many years of appalling corporate b0-lax I organised a mini adventure race for my lot, some decent brain teasers, teamwork type stuff and a couple of more out there bits. Feedback was that this was the first thing they had done which was of any use. The aftermatch in the pub was good as well. Before that we were forced to do all the usual w@nk and quite frankly all it does is waste time and money. After it the level of co-operation and communication was measurably better. Quite frankly the paradigm was shifted. Sorry, couldn;t help myself.

Been through the process have we?

Might have. Can’t tell you though can I ?