How drama-based learning makes performance conversations easier

Performance conversations are essential to healthy workplace cultures, but they can often feel uncomfortable, unclear, or even avoided altogether. Drama-based learning helps make these conversations easier by allowing people to practise difficult moments, reflect on real behaviours, and build the confidence to handle feedback constructively.

1. Creating a Safe Space for Real Conversations

One of the main reasons performance conversations become challenging is because people feel emotionally exposed. Whether you’re giving or receiving feedback, there’s a fear of saying the wrong thing, being misunderstood, or damaging the relationship.

Drama-based learning addresses this by creating a psychologically safe environment for exploration. Through scripted scenarios and roleplay grounded in real workplace behaviours, participants can engage in the “messiness” of human interaction without real-world consequences. This space allows people to test language, observe body language cues, and try new approaches.

Unlike traditional training, this experiential method enables emotional connection. Learners don’t just listen or read about difficult conversations; they witness them, feel them, and start to understand what works and what doesn’t. The power of storytelling and performance helps people drop their guard and engage more openly, which is essential for learning how to navigate performance conversations with authenticity.

In fact, psychological safety has been widely recognised as a foundation of effective teams. According to a study highlighted by Harvard Business Review, teams with strong psychological safety are more innovative, engaged, and open to feedback. Drama-based learning reinforces this by modelling that safety through lived experience.

2. Building Empathy Through Perspective-Taking

Performance conversations are often hindered by a lack of empathy. A manager might focus solely on KPIs, while an employee might struggle with unseen pressures or unclear expectations. Without understanding each other’s perspectives, both parties leave the conversation feeling unheard or defensive.

Drama-based learning puts empathy at the centre by enabling participants to see situations from multiple viewpoints. Watching a scenario unfold from both the manager’s and employee’s side helps learners identify emotional undercurrents, assumptions, and triggers that might otherwise go unnoticed.

This is particularly effective when it comes to unconscious bias or culturally influenced communication styles. As CIPD notes in their guide to managing conflict at work, recognising and understanding differences is vital to building mutual respect and accountability.

By stepping into someone else’s shoes, learners not only enhance their emotional intelligence but also develop the skills to lead more balanced and empathetic performance conversations.

3. Rehearsing the Tough Stuff Before It Counts

One of the biggest advantages of drama-based learning is rehearsal. Just like an actor prepares for a role, professionals can practise high-stakes moments before they happen.

Through facilitated roleplay, participants rehearse giving constructive feedback, responding to defensiveness, or resetting expectations in a performance conversation. This “rehearsal mindset” removes some of the pressure that comes with real-life scenarios.

At Steps, we often hear from clients that they don’t get stuck because they don’t know what to say — they get stuck because they don’t know how to say it. Rehearsing through drama gives people the chance to find their voice, fine-tune their language, and practise the interpersonal nuance that performance conversations demand.

This is particularly valuable in remote or hybrid work settings, where conversations often take place without the benefit of full body language or tone cues. Practising difficult exchanges beforehand increases confidence and clarity when it counts.

4. Uncovering Organisational Culture and Patterns

Sometimes what makes a performance conversation difficult isn’t just the individuals involved, but the wider organisational culture. Is feedback typically avoided or sugar-coated? Is it only given when things go wrong? Are certain people never challenged?

Drama-based learning can spotlight these dynamics in a powerful and safe way. By reflecting recognisable situations back to a group, organisations can start to see recurring behaviours, systemic challenges, and cultural blind spots. This awareness helps shift performance conversations from one-off events to part of a broader cultural transformation.

For example, our work with clients often reveals a pattern of feedback avoidance among senior leaders. By surfacing this dynamic through drama, and giving those leaders a space to unpack it, we help them move towards a culture of accountability and growth.

According to McKinsey & Company, organisations that build feedback-rich environments perform better, retain talent more effectively, and foster innovation. Drama-based learning is a powerful lever for making that cultural shift.

5. Embedding Long-Term Behavioural Change

While a traditional workshop might inspire temporary insight, drama-based learning promotes sustained behavioural change. That’s because it engages both the head and the heart.

By making performance conversations feel more familiar and less intimidating, people are more likely to have them consistently and effectively. They build muscle memory around emotionally intelligent responses and see feedback as an opportunity for growth, not conflict.

As Forbes highlights, high-performing teams are built on trust, transparency, and the ability to tackle tough conversations head-on. Drama-based learning supports exactly that.

When organisations invest in building capability through immersive, reflective, and practical approaches like drama-based learning, the result isn’t just better conversations — it’s better performance.

Learn More

Want to see how drama-based learning works in action? Explore our page on performance management out the Steps to Change methodology to learn how we embed behaviour change that lasts.

If you’re looking to make performance conversations easier across your organisation, we’d love to help. Contact us by clicking on this link.