Setting the Stage: Every year, Major League Baseball and the MLB Player's Association conduct a Rookie Development Program to help young players manage the unique challenges of assimilating into the Bigs. The program prepares players for situations they'll encounter on and off the field. Over 3 days they focus on general issues such as work-life balance and money management, as well as more specific challenges like cultural assimilation, media relations, fanatical fans, and the subtleties of hierarchy and tenure in the clubhouse. The challenge for SCC was to engage an audience of highly talented young men (who are more accustomed to multi-day road trips than multi-day conferences) in a dialogue around unique and sensitive topics, without sounding preachy or artificial.

Playing our Part: When we first created this program 6 years ago, we knew we had to be credible to get the Rookie's attention and funny to keep them interested. So we created and performed over a dozen custom-written sketches to dramatize real-world rookie scenarios. We then combined the scenes with expert facilitation to spur honest dialogue among the rookies, helping them to swap ideas on the issues. In 2007, we took it to the next level by asking the rookies to work in groups to dig further into the scenarios and tell us how the rookie in the scenario should or shouldn’t handle it. We took their ideas and performed our scenes with their endings which resulted in an even richer exploration of the issues. To top it off we tapped into the competitive nature of the rookies by adding a group challenge. Throughout the entire program, the rookies were able to win prizes based on points they earned for participation in different discussions and events. The result was increased engagement and attendance during the program, and the rookies left with an even deeper understanding of the situations they will face…as well as some great prizes!