Drama brings diversity to life at Phillips Petroleum
Drama brings diversity to life at Phillips Petroleum
Drama-based learning is being used to bring diversity to life as part of a two-day workshop for all UK managers and supervisors of the Phillips Petroleum Company's Europe-Africa division. Designed to help the company to attract,retain, challenge and develop exceptional employees, the workshop also covers strategy, change management and coaching.
Phillips Petroleum Company, one of the largest US-based integrated oil companies, has a corporate goal to be the top performer in everything it does. As part of this mission, the company seeks to become an employer of choice.
In the UK, Phillips has set up a VIP (valuing individual people) council,made up of 12 individuals from different parts of the business. The council aims to foster an environment that will attract, retain, challenge and develop exceptional employees.
"We want to motivate people to use their diverse talents and backgrounds to contribute fully to business success," said Helen Lancaster, employee relations specialist for organizational development. "We decided to run a VIP/diversity awareness training workshop that would build on our corporate values and link diversity to the strategic aspects of the business."
Having been interested in the concept of drama-based learning, Helen Lancaster met external consultants and Steps, the "drama for learning"specialist. Together, they worked up a format and the result was a comprehensive two-day workshop.
Called "Growth through People", the workshop has been aimed at all managers and supervisors at Phillips's three UK locations, Woking, Bacton and Aberdeen. To date, it has run six times, at off-site venues, with 15-20 delegates attending each time.
The first day of the workshop highlights Phillips's growth strategy and the issue of change management. It also covers Stephen Covey's seven habits of highly effective people.
Day two involves drama-based learning and covers diversity and coaching. In the morning session, professional role-players from Steps act out different scenarios covering the issues of attracting, retaining, challenging and developing people.
"The actors play characters in typical scenes that managers may face during their day-to-day roles," said Helen Lancaster. "In these scenarios, the characters make mistakes and they get the audience to help and coach them. The delegates make suggestions as to how they can improve and the actors put these into practice. You immediately see the positive effects when you respect people's values and do not judge them based on your own prejudices and assumptions."
In the afternoon session, an external consultant introduces a coaching model and the delegates are split into small groups to put the model into practice. Each group is given four scenarios to work on – coaching an employee through change, coaching someone with high expectations, coaching a valued employee who lacks interpersonal skills and dealing with a contractor who is not following procedures.
In the groups, each delegate takes a turn to role-play the coach, while an actor role-plays the person being coached. The other group members give the"coach" feedback on his or her performance.
"I worked with Steps to ensure the role-plays are always realistic,"said Helen Lancaster. "Some of our people are apprehensive about having to undertake role-plays themselves but they always say afterwards how much they learned from the process and how much they enjoyed it. Other people in the organization have now heard how good the sessions are and have asked if they can attend in the future."
Phillips has not used drama-based learning in this context before. Helen Lancaster says it has been extremely effective.
"The role-plays really bring our corporate values to life," she said."They make the whole workshop highly participative, good fun and very different from what most people expect. Delegates benefit personally because they are able to share best practice and test out different techniques in a safe environment. The company also benefits as the entire management team gains a greater appreciation of the importance of valuing diversity to encourage potential and achieve strategic objectives."
Since the workshop first ran, Phillips has announced plans for a merger of equals with Conoco. Following the trend of consolidation in the oil and gas industries, the merger will create the world's sixth-largest energy company. This development has a bearing on the issues now raised in the workshops.
"We have changed the emphasis of the workshop to focus more on aspects of dealing with change," said Helen Lancaster. "We use it to provide survival tips to help people to prepare for the merger and to reinforce the importance of coaching and leadership style. The importance of our values is further enhanced as we consider the culture that will emerge in the new Conoco Phillips.
"All of this gives an added benefit to those attending as it provides an opportunity for them to take stock of the announcement, to consider the potential impact and then to prepare themselves positively for the journey ahead."
