Why It Works

“Using Anne and Supporting Roles in our courses has really enhanced out learners' experience. The C-level actors (actors improvising in the roles of CEOs, CFO's, CIO's, etc.) were so real, our participants thought they were dealing with real clients! A great experience all round and would definitely recommend.”

Human Resources and BBC Worldwide Sales Academy

“I have worked with Supporting Roles in three different countries and I have been extremely satisfied with their service. Punctual, enthusiastic and experienced consultants have supported me in delivering training to more than 60 staff of mixed experience, seniority and background. Anne coordinated the preparation impeccably, I was very impressed by how well-briefed my co-facilitators were. Everybody put in a lot of patience, attention to details and genuine passion in delivering the programme with me.

MSc CTA (C) Dip TA Psych, Dip SW, CQSW, Cert MFth, CCETSW, App PT, NLP Master Prac, CMC FIBC, MAHPP Owner Alchemy Worldwide www.alchemyww.com

“We have been working with Anne Coughlan and her colleagues at Supporting Roles for approximately 8 years in the deployment of a major learning and development intervention designed to enhance the performance of KPMG professionals from associate to partner level. This project is of a global nature and I have had the privilege of working with Anne and her colleagues in Canada, USA, Mexico, brazil, Thailand, Singapore, hong kong, Australia, new Zealand, japan, Malaysia, India, and Vietnam.

Throughout this time I have been immensely impressed by their professionalism and meticulous attention to the very demanding roles they are expected to play. Working with some of the most challenging and intellectually able professional services colleagues, Anne and her team have demonstrated an enviable flexibility in order to accommodate the very diverse intellectual capability and cultural differences.

From a personal perspective, as a facilitator, developer and project manager of the KPMG account, I have demanded high levels of flexibility and adaptability, needing Anne and her colleagues to change direction in a major development program instantaneously. What has deeply impressed me has also been their ability to respond to my challenges and to show a high degree of professionalism in their behavioral flexibility and emotional competence in order to enhance the learning of the delegates.

Finally, I would like to say it has been a real pleasure knowing Anne and her colleagues not only for their professionalism but also for their collegial friendship. I strongly recommend them to you.”

Professor, Associate Professor Of Organizational Behaviour, Executive Director Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute For Leadership, Director Leading Cross-Enterprise Research Centre, Faculty Scholar, The University Of Western Ontario The Richard Ivey School Of Business, The University Of Western Ontario

“ I have used Supporting Roles with great success in leadership classes. The actors “stretch” the students. This allows for great dialogue and as a result great learning occurs.”

MSc, Change Agent Skills & Strategies 2000 – 2003, MBTI Accredited Currently Pursuing Studies In Gestalt, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, And Needs-Based Transformation. Owner/Director Alchemy Worldwide www.alchemyww.com.

“ I have worked with Anne Coughlan and her team at Supporting Roles for the past 8 years. As part of a global leadership development program for one of the ‘big four’ consulting firms, I have had the pleasure of working with the SR team with participant groups all over the world, working with cultures as diverse as Japan to Thailand and Brazil to the USA.

There are a number of things I value about working with SR which leads me to look forward to working with the team each time I hear they are involved. In particular, as a facilitator of learning, I need to work with actors who are flexible, emotionally literate and articulate, and who are consistently committed to the participant’s learning, not their own ‘performance’. Working with Supporting Roles, we repeatedly receive feedback from participants that the actors are brilliant at recreating the feelings and challenges of real-life working in their professional environment, that the level of challenge they are able to provide really helps participants to ‘up their game’ and for me, gives me the confidence that the actors working with the group will bring to the surface key elements of learning to highlight and emphasise the learning points required.

Anne Coughlan is tireless in her desire to ensure her team provide the highest quality of support possible and is always asking for, and is responsive to, feedback and direction. I would have no hesitation in recommending Anne and her team to anyone who wants to focus on a real-time, experiential approach as a route to learning.”

“We had a blast – I don’t know how you pulled it off so fast, but we got great feedback on the experience that you were able to create!”

BSEE, MBA, Ph.D. Faculty Director, Ivey Executive Education Director, Ivey Leadership Program, Ivey School Of Business

“We’ve used Supporting Roles across many different types of development and education programs — more than 100 different programs across Ivey over the last ten years.

The work they do with us involves some of the highest evaluated sessions we offer to participants. Some of our participants are quite seasoned, meaning they’ve been exposed to development programs in some of the best-tier universities across North America, and they consistently point to the work with Supporting roles as some of the top educational experiences of their lives.

Because so much of effective leadership is behavioural in nature, the bottom line is you can’t just talk about it, you’ve got to practice it. The interactions with Supporting Roles stretch you beyond your comfort zone into that realm where you can’t help but learn things about yourself that will allow you to improve your performance.”

BA, MA, PhD Ivey School Of Business J. Allyn Taylor & Arthur H. Mingay Chair In Leadership, Ivey School Of Business, BMO, JD Irving Ltd., Maple Leaf Foods

“Using professional actors in role plays creates a powerful and memorable learning experience for participants. Supporting roles carefully selects and thoroughly prepares their actors – the actors’ credibility is first rate! By realistically portraying an individual’s character, motivations and reactions, and offering candid, constructive feedback, actors help participants make lasting changes in their behavior."

Chief Of Strategy Management, Gov’t Of NB, VP HR & Corporate Services, ANBL (Liquor) Former Director Leadership Development J.D. Irving Ltd.,

“When we role play ourselves, there are too many distractions for the participant and the learning does not reach true potential. Supporting roles participation increases our return on learning. Supporting roles took the time to tour our facilities and understand our culture and business. They were very quick to pick up on the “unique” nature of our culture as well as portray a variety of employees accurately…from sales to technical to operational. Our participants were amazed at how realistic the role plays were. Having actors in our coaching program was very high impact to a group of professionals with very high expectations!”

J.D., LL.B., LL.M.(ADR), Cert. F. Med. and President Riverdale Mediation Ltd.

“We offer highly specialized, advanced level courses. The actors we use for our role plays must absorb detailed and complex information quickly and credibly. The supporting roles actors have done the job superbly, adding great value to what we do. Thanks!”

http://www.riverdalemediation.com/about-us/hilary-linton/

Members Of The WEAct Working Group, Recognition, Respect, Collaboration Western Engineering

“Working with Anne Coughlan and her team of professional actors was an exceptional experience. Anne not only guided us through the requirements to make our workshop successful, but she attended on the day of our event and ensured a seamless delivery of our scenario role plays. The professional actors, that were chosen by Anne, realistically acted out the various scenes that might occur in our workplace. The characters were relatable to our audience and helped to display the behaviours we were trying to capture…

...using the professional actors created an engaging, memorable and impactful experience for our audience. The table and group discussions, that our audience participated in following the scenes, generated the most dialogue we have ever seen. I have no doubt that this workshop will leave a lasting impression and has created the learning experience outcomes that we desired for our workplace.”

“…this experience was not only an engaging and very realistic for our people, but the immediate, knowledgeable, and incisive feedback, from the actors was a definite surprise. They are well trained and this really added to our people’s immediate, practical learning and their ability to apply this in the field…our people are highly trained and experienced in coaching but this was definitely a unique experience that translated into deep learning.”

“Invaluable human simulators. Supporting roles have customized their services to meet our specific needs to create a dynamic, life-like context for our learners to apply the traditional training content. Based on 20 years and over 10,000 students as a police trainer, I can truly say that supporting roles makes a difference in scenario-based training!”