Author: Anne-Laure Blanco

I love to turn life into pedagogical stories. My challenge is to make storytelling as powerful as real-life experience. For a real immersive User Experience.

The Backbone of Digital Role Plays: Behind the Creation of a Simulation

 

Digital Role Plays are gaining in importance in the training market.
Their benefits include an increase in performance, better user’s involvement, and the fact that you can train where, when and as many times as you want, make them increasingly popular among both trainers and trainees.

But in order to create an efficient role play, a very precise and articulated process has to be followed.

 

What’s behind a Digital Role Play and how is it designed? How is a training tool for conversational leadership generated? How can we make a role plays consistent?

These are some questions that this article is going to answer.

 

How to create a simulation: the basics

Before even starting to think about writing the scenario of a simulation, you have to think of the basics, the pillars that define the core of the simulation.

There are four: the purpose of the conversation, the topic, the user’s role and the character.

  • Let’s start with the purpose of the simulation, basically what is this simulation for? What’s its goal? Training the Leaders of course, but on what? In other words, you need to define the type of critical conversation you are going to design.
    After extensive research, we chose to work on four big types of critical conversations that we called Inspire, Lead, Support and Discover.
    To give some concrete examples, the Leader can try to inspire his teams, discover needs or topics to make better decisions, lead people to make things happen or support his team in managing their daily work.

 

  • For the second pillar, you need to define the topic: the topic is basically the framework in which the simulation is based. Just as the type of conversation defines the macro area, the topic is more precise, more “concrete” and closer to the Leader’s activities.
    Let’s think a bit about what the greatest topics a Leader has to deal with in his day-to-day-job. For example, it can be teamwork, performance, strategy or diversity.
    There are numerous topics you can list and order according to different criteria (subjective vs objective, review vs plan, etc.).

 

  • Once you’ve defined all the topics that you consider relevant to the Leaders, it is time to go define the third pillar of your simulation: the role of the user.
    Who will use this simulation? Who do you want to train among your Leaders? We can give a few examples: it can be a Sales Manager, a Project Leader, an HR Manager, etc.
    The Leader can be junior or senior, front end or back office. The important point is to define it at the very beginning because the simulation you will design will be different according to its target.

 

  • Finally, you have to define the character the Leader is going to face in the conversation. Not only his role in the team the Leader is managing, but also his personality, his way of thinking and seeing things, his reactions, his needs, etc.
    All of these elements will make the characters more realistic, more “human” and above all, more authentic.
    Here at SkillGym, we based our research on famous and renowned models like the HBTI® model, the DISC® or Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in order to define the type of characters the Leader is going to meet.
    For example, it can be a Dynamic character, who is action-oriented and focuses on results, or a Diplomat, who will be tactful and empathetic, but conservative and reluctant to get outside of his comfort zone.

 

 

This means that for example, you can work on the design of a simulation:

  • For a Junior Leader (back office)
  • Who will try to support one of his team members
  • A Diplomat reluctant to change
  • On a performance issue

Or a simulation:

  • For a Senior Leader (front end)
  • Who will try to inspire two team members
  • Skeptical characters, who are neither flexible nor empathetic
  • On strategy issues

And with these 4 pillars, you have solid ground upon which to build the SITUATION of the simulation.

 

Before even starting to think about writing the scenario of a simulation, you have to think of the base, the pillars that define the core of the simulation. There are four: the topic, the character, the purpose of the conversation and the user’s role.

 

How to manage the situation: the styles of leadership

Once you have defined a situation, you obviously have to think about a good way to handle it. In other words, you have to define the best leadership style to manage this particular situation.

Just as you have to adapt your speech and behavior to the person you are meeting, you have to adapt your leadership style to the context you are facing.
For example, you will not use the same style to give negative feedback to an employee or to support one of your team member in prioritizing his tasks, when you’re aligning your teams on the new company’s strategy or when you are exploring a D&I problem.

 

That’s why our simulations use various styles in their scenarios in order to help the Leader find the best approach with his counterparts. In our curriculum, we work on the basis of 6 styles: Commanding, Visionary, Affiliative, Coaching, Pacesetting and Democratic, as defined by the psychologist Kurt Lewin.

In the previous examples, according to the leadership styles defined, you will use the Visionary style to align your team on the strategy, the Affiliative one for the D&I problem, you will help set priorities with the Democratic style, and so on.

I suggest you take a look at our article “Using Situational Leadership to Manage Different Types of Conversations”, which covers this topic in greater detail.

 

Defining the skills to train

The next step in the design of a role play is the definition of the actionable skills that you want your Leaders to train on.
There are many skills that a good Leader must have to perform his best on tasks.

You can see the skills of a Leader in his observable behaviors, and SkillGym conducted extensive research to define which ones are fundamental and need to be trained in critical conversations.

 

There are different categories of skills, for example communication skills that can be broken down into observable behaviors like “ask questions”, “provide information”, “find a common ground”, etc.; or motivation skills with behaviors such as “be inspiring” or “give credit and award”.

You can, of course, rank them according to the type of conversation the Leader is going to face, whether he is trying to inspire his teams, leading them by guiding them in the right direction or discovering issues to improve performance.

 

In a simulation, the actionable skills you are going to use depend on the styles of leadership that you will be using on this particular situation. It can be, for example, “be authoritative”, “communicate efficiently” and “remove obstacles” for a Commanding leadership style. Or “be inspiring”, “profile other people” or “generate a positive mood” in an Affiliative style.

To go deeper into this topic, you can find more information in our article “Making Competency Models Truly Actionable in People’s Development”.

 

The skill and its “shading” (in other words, how it is used, from an optimal way to the worst way possible) into observable behaviors is going to vary according to:

  • The character: according to his personality, you will not use the skill the same way.
  • The role of the Leader: the shading of the skill will be different according to the seniority of the Leader who is playing. Some skills are much more developed for an experienced Leader and the shading will be harder for a senior than for a junior, for example.
  • The type of conversation: some skills will be used and shaded differently if you are trying to inspire people or to support them.
  • The topic: of course, you will use your skills and behave differently if you’re meeting someone to give him feedback or to define his new priorities with him.
  • The moment of the conversation: the “optimal” shading of a skill can change during the conversation. Let’s use a very simple example: when you’re defining what your counterpart’s needs, the optimal skill will be the use of open questions. On the other hand, when you’re summarizing his needs, the optimal way will be to use closed questions.

 

 

 

There are many skills that a good Leader must have to optimally perform his tasks. You can see the skills of a Leader in his observable behaviors, and SkillGym conducted extensive research to define which ones are fundamental and need to be trained in critical conversations. 

 

Adding a plot to the situation

Let’s summarize what we have done so far:

  • The first step is to define the four pillars of the role play by thinking about the purpose of the simulation: the type of conversation, the topic to be addressed, the target of the simulation (the role of the user) and the character that the user is going to meet.
  • Once you have determined the 4 pillars, and thus the situation, you focus on determining what style of leadership you are going to use to best manage this situation.
  • After this step, you need to work on the actionable skills to put into practice during the role play and their shading in observable behaviors.

 

Once all these elements are clearly defined, you can focus on the plot. This step consists of going into the storyline more in detail to describe precisely the problem the Leader is going to face, the character he is meeting (name, age, background, situational needs, body language, etc.), who asked for the meeting (the Leader or the character), where the conversation is going to take place and when, the context of the situation, etc.

It is also time to settle the expected outcomes of the conversation, in other words the objectives that the Leaders have to reach. It can be for example: define the character’s problem, boost his confidence, raise his awareness about a critical situation, etc.

 

It’s around these objectives that you will build the whole communication strategy and process, in other words the different steps that the Leader will have to go through to reach these objectives.
To give you a few examples, these steps can be the Analysis of the problem, Sharing of a scalable solution, Definition of the next milestones, etc.

Of course, the communication process depends entirely of the objectives, the style of leadership and the plot in general.
But all of these elements will ultimately help you define the story, as you can see in the schematic below.

 

 

Thanks to this structured and extensive process, you have all the cards in your hands to design a powerful and efficient training tool like SkillGym, which also allows you to provide the user with both emotional and contextualized feedback as well as objective metrics.

The feedback can be, for example, the character telling a colleague what he really thought of the meeting you just had.

 

 

The metrics can be scores and data on your objective performance during the conversation.

 

Doing this makes the user use both sides of his brain, the analytical one and the holistic one.
Our research showed us that using both sides of the brain is critical in order to raise users’ self-awareness and thus to help them improve their skills and performance.

For more info on the power of feedback and metrics, I suggest this article (“Why Stimulate Self-Awareness by Using Both Sides of Your Brain?”).

 

Conclusion

The creation of a Digital Role Play is not just about writing a script that the user must master in order to improve his conversational leadership.

On the contrary, it is a complex and exhaustive process with different steps to follow; the story being only the tip of the iceberg. Everything has to be taken into account (who, what, when, where, why) in order to create a very powerful and efficient tool.

And thanks to its research and experience, SkillGym masters the creation of critical conversations masterfully.

 

If you want to know more about the metrics to ensure successful training on critical conversations? You may find this article (“8 Key Metrics to Ensure a Successful Practical Training on Critical Conversations”) interesting.

Interested in our approach in building leadership conversation? Please explore the subject more in-depth with our articles “Practicing Conversational Leadership: six factors to consider in designing a well-balanced Training Program” and “Digital Role Play Stripped Bare”.

If you are interested in knowing more about SkillGym and its Digital Role Plays, click here to book a 1-hour discovery call.

 

Develop leadership through better conversations, discover SkillGym!
SCHEDULE A DISCOVERY CALL

Written By
Anne-Laure Blanco
I love to turn life into pedagogical stories. My challenge is to make storytelling as powerful as real-life experience. For a real immersive User Experience.
Contact Anne Laure
Leave a Reply

Our Brain Doesn’t Tell the Difference Between Simulation and Reality

 

What is a simulation?

Let’s start with a bit of theory: what is a simulation? In a few words, “A simulation is an imitation of a system involving the construction of an artificial history, with the real system features”, according to the 2010 study Simulation – Concepts and Applications.

That means that simulation is a problem-solving tool that helps find the solution to real-world problems as it helps understand the world/system better.

 

Simulations are used in almost any area nowadays: science, manufacturing, military, transportation, construction, computer, leisure, etc.

They are now part of our everyday life and have various applications: weather forecasts, science tests, test buildings, military training, flight simulations, traffic regulation, video games, etc.

They are used quite often in training now, whether it is hard skills (specific, quantifiable skills that can be defined and measured, such as writing, mathematics, operating a machine, etc.) or soft skills (personality oriented interpersonal skills such as team work, time management, communication, negotiation, etc.).

 

Simulations are used in almost any area nowadays: science, manufacturing, military, transportation, construction, computer, leisure, etc. They are now part of our everyday life and have various applications.

 

How do our brains learn?

In order to understand how simulations can accelerate learning, let’s just go a bit deeper into theory before entering fully in the simulation subject and let’s see how the brain actually learns.

 

The University of California Irvine’s Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory proved during their experiments that, in the brain, neurons bond in order to transmit data more easily and accurately.

These bonds strengthen as they are frequently used, which means that the more they are used, the quicker the information goes and the quicker the task is done. On the contrary, when two neurons rarely interacted, the transmission of information weakens, and the information takes more time to be transmitted.

 

When the brain learns something new, the neurons have to create new connections, which implies that the person needs greater effort and attention to learn and do this new task.
It’s a bit like driving: if you already know the road, you will drive to the destination without even thinking about it (like going to the office in the morning, going back home after work, etc.).

But when you’re going to a new place, you are more cautious about what’s around you: You study the itinerary, you look at the road signs, etc. And in the end, it will take more time than a route you know perfectly well!

 

Simulations work the same way!

They are known to help speed up cognitive processes, which are the mental processes that enable people to stock and use information and knowledge; but they also speed up the practical learning of skills and behaviors. To back up this idea, let’s refer to the mirror neurons study.

 

The mirror neurons were discovered in 1992 by neurophysiologists Giacomo Rizzolatti, Luciano Fadiga, Leonardo Fogassi, Giuseppe Di Pellegrino, and Vittorio Gallese from the University of Parma. They found out that these cells activate when you do some actions, but also when you see them, in order to remember and replicate them.

This is why you yawn when you see someone yawning, for example. What works for basic actions such as smiling and crying also works for athletic performance and complex learning.

 

 

In other words, mirror neurons are responsible for the “learning by watching and doing” effect. It also means that you can learn how to change your behaviors by watching and practicing.

 

Mirror neurons are responsible for the “learning by watching and doing” effect. It means that you can learn how to change your behaviors by watching and practicing.

 

There is a lot to learn by watching and doing. You can watch and learn to recognize body language and emotional reactions to what you say and do in order to be able to interact better with others.

To know more about the triggers that can help users learn by practice, do not hesitate to read our article (“8 Ways Your Skills Will Improve by Practicing on Digital Role Plays”).

 

Training in simulations

There are different types of training simulators according to what you want to train in.
You can use, for example, hardware simulators: it can be a training cockpit to train pilots or a plastic dummy to train medical students.

 

                                                                           

But you can also use software. Training on software is now developing in many organizations. It can be 3D simulators. These simulators can use characters, whether they are real persons or puppets and avatars to interact with the users.

 

Benefits of training on a simulator

Training in simulations brings some big benefits to the trainees:

• First of all, it increases the user’s involvement. As we saw in one of our previous articles, adult learners don’t like theory and need task-oriented learning. So, in, order to engage trainees in learning sessions, you have to find an interactive and immersive way to involve them and make them practice by themselves.

• Unlike training in a classroom, you can train repeatedly. Simulations can be made as many times as necessary in order to perfectly learn a skill, a behavior, etc. The user can try, and fail, different times in order to learn from his mistakes and find the right approach, and this doesn’t affect other people around him. It is a safe environment.
For example, a pilot can learn safely how to fly and crash a thousand times during simulations, without harming a passenger!

• The “game aspect” of a simulation engages the users much more. As in all games, users want to win. And a training simulator involves you much more in the learning process as you always want to perform better and ‘win.’ As we know, adults learn better by practice, and simulators motivate them practice more as they want to “do better than last time”.

• By training using a simulation software, you can practice anytime, anywhere. Unlike classrooms that you have to physically attend at a definite hour and during a precise amount of time (with all the inconveniences in organization and preparation that it necessities), simulation by software can be completed anywhere and at any time.
This flexibility allows the user to choose the best moment for him to train, when he is more available (both in time and in mind), which makes him more involved in the training, improving its efficiency. For example, a surgeon, with a very busy timetable, can use a slot between two surgeries to train on new techniques on a simulator and master his techniques.

• Training on a simulator, even on a software, makes the training more realistic. The simulation recreates a situation that the user faces in real life every day. Whether it is a flight simulation, a virtual patient or a sales conversation, the user faces a familiar situation. By doing so, he trains his skills and applies them in real life without even noticing.
This is where the mirror neurons come into play. If the simulation is realistic enough, the brain doesn’t differentiate, thus learning as if it was the reality.
Let’s use the example of the flight simulator: by practicing on his simulation for hundreds of hours, the pilot-to-be gains in reflexes and automatisms.
He will perform the maneuvers to take off and land without even noticing (remember the example about driving that we talked about previously!) and gain reflexes on how to react in stressful situations that occurred during the simulation (emergency landing, mechanical problems, bad weather, etc.).

 

Whether it is a flight simulation, a virtual patient or a sales conversation, the user faces a familiar situation. By doing so, he trains his skills and applies them in real life without even noticing.

 

Why use a simulation to train leadership

Leadership is essential to better address some critical conversations; you need some key skills and practice to apply them in your day-to-day job. And that’s where simulation can help.
By training on conversations using leadership skills on a Digital Role Play, you can practice and try different approaches and management styles without hurting the feelings of the person in front of you.

 

Moreover, by using Digital Role Plays, you can learn to recognize the non-verbal language of the person in front of you and understand how to interact accordingly: reassuring him when you see that he is stressed or in doubt, encourage him when he has lost his motivation, inspire your team to face new challenges to come when you feel they are reluctant…everything that can make you a great Leader in your team’s eyes.
To read more about the conversational leadership and the Digital Role Plays to improve it, check out our articles here.

 

By using Digital Role Plays, you can learn to recognize the non-verbal language of the person in front of you and understand how to interact accordingly: reassuring him when you that see he is stressed or in doubt, encourage him when he has lost his motivation, inspire your team to face new challenges to come when you feel they are reluctant…everything that can make you a great Leader in your team’s eyes.

 

The typical steps of a conversational simulation

The first step of a typical simulation to train conversational leadership is the preparation to the meeting. The user is given elements to better manage the situation he is about to face.
He can, for example, learn more about the context, the profile of the person he is about to meet, the objectives of the meeting, etc. Once he has learned as much as he can about the situation, he can meet the character.

 

The simulation starts with a short prologue, then the meeting will take place. The user will talk to the character choosing his words from the set of suggested choices, and the character will answer accordingly. This sequence will be repeated for all the conversation until the end of the meeting.

Once the meeting is over, the user will be asked to assess his performance based on various criteria (skills, steps of the meeting) and then the character will give his subjective feedback on the meeting.
In the end, the user will receive objective metrics on his performance on how to improve his approach for the future conversations, and eventually review the results with his coach to get hints on what to work on.
More details on how a conversational simulation works can be find in this article (“Digital Role Play Stripped Bare”).

 

Introducing AI into conversational simulations

One of the great innovations of the most advanced simulations dedicated to conversational leadership, also known as digital role plays, is the use of Artificial intelligence instead of the classical branching techniques.
With branching techniques, every choice is predetermined, and the user quickly understands what he has to click on to perform. By doing so, the benefits of this kind of training are totally lost.

 

On the other hand, with artificial intelligence, the use of different algorithms makes the character’s reactions and behaviors unpredictable, so the user really has to focus on the character’s body language to understand if his approach is the right one or not.

Not only does it make the simulation more realistic (who knows how a real person will react if you push the wrong button), it also makes it more efficient and interesting for the user.
To know more about how AI helps deliver a better training experience, I strongly recommend you read our article (“How AI Helps Delivering a Better SkillGym Training Experience”), regarding how SkillGym leverages AI to deliver a much more authentic and immersive learning experience.

 

AI becomes even more powerful when combined with interactive video. Why use interactive video and not a puppet as a character? Simply because it makes the role play more immersive and realistic.

  • By facing a real person, you are able to see his body language, hear his tone of voice and so on. These elements help you understand if you are managing the conversation in a good way of not and add great value to the role play.
    Even if technology has made progress in the design of avatars, nothing can replace a human face for facial expressions or human body language.

 

  • Meeting a real character makes the simulation more immersive and much more realistic. As we saw earlier, realism is the key to activate mirror neurons and learn by doing.
    Your brain will never take a puppet for a real person, so you won’t learn by doing as you will by facing a real character, embodied by an actor, with his own personality, triggers, way of talking, etc.

 

Conclusion

Studies showed that our brain doesn’t differentiate between reality and simulation, which is why simulations are extensively used nowadays in training.

Here at SkillGym, we push reality to the max by combining the use of artificial intelligence and interactive cinema in our Digital Role Plays in order to make the user learn without even noticing and improve his performance in conversational leadership.

 

If you want to read more about our role plays, please explore the subject in more depth with our articles Digital Role Play Stripped Bare and 8 Ways Your Skills Will Improve by Practicing on Digital Role Plays.

Interested in our approach in building leadership conversation? You may find this article on the curriculum for conversational leadership enlightening.

If you are interested in knowing more about SkillGym and its Digital Role Plays, click here to book a 1-hour discovery call.

Develop leadership through better conversations, discover SkillGym!
SCHEDULE A DISCOVERY CALL

Written By
Anne-Laure Blanco
I love to turn life into pedagogical stories. My challenge is to make storytelling as powerful as real-life experience. For a real immersive User Experience.
Contact Anne Laure
Leave a Reply

Why Stimulate Self-Awareness by Using Both Sides of Your Brain?

 

During training, it is harder to improve your performance if you are not aware of your real level of expertise from the very beginning. That’s why this first step is crucial at the beginning of a training.
There are different ways to raise self-awareness: the emotional feedback and the concrete figures. Here we will show you that mixing the two is even more efficient.

 

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. – Carl Jung

 

Self-awareness: an important asset

First, let’s define what self-awareness is. It means that you have a clear and honest vision of your personality that includes not only strengths and weaknesses, but also your emotions and motivations.

In other words, it is the ability to know what you are doing as you do it and understand why you are doing it. Self-awareness is a skill, and like all skills, it needs to be trained.

 

Being self-aware of your own performance is key. Here are a few reasons:

  • When you’re aware of your weaknesses, it’s easier for you to define which way to direct your effort. You know what you have to improve and can directly focus on it.
  • It’s also easier to rely on others who don’t share your weaknesses in order to overcome difficulties. Working with complementary people is always easier when you already know what your strengths and weaknesses are.
  • By being self-aware of your strengths and weaknesses, you gain objectivity and it helps you make all your choices and decisions.
  • Self-awareness helps you be proactive instead of just reactive and makes you raise your standards to always aim at doing better. In other words, it makes you respond rather than just react.
  • Self-awareness helps you to improve your emotional intelligence, according to Daniel Goleman’s studies. And mastering this skill makes you understand better the problems you face and so the best ways to solve them.

 

For all these reasons, it is essential to stimulate self-awareness during training: if you know what your weaknesses are, it’s easier to work on the problem.
Besides, the more self-aware you are, the more rapid and efficient the training will be.

 

Self-awareness helps you be proactive instead of just reactive and makes you raise your standards to always aim at doing better.

 

How to efficiently stimulate self-awareness in the long term

In order to stimulate self-awareness, there are two consecutive steps: ask yourself good questions and get a feedback on your actions.

Once you’ve defined your motivations and goals, it’s easier to make decisions.
You can ask yourself for example:

  • What am I trying to achieve?
  • What am I doing that is working?
  • What am I doing that is slowing me down?
  • What can I do to change?

 

 

After your actions, you can ask for feedback from friends, colleagues or managers. We always need an objective, constructive and direct view on what we did, and they will play the role of the honest mirror for your actions and behaviors.

 

Feedback, whether it’s positive or negative, is the most powerful way to realize the impact of your actions and attitudes towards others.
But usually people are reluctant to give feedback freely, hence why you often have to ask for it specifically. In part because it’s not always easy or pleasant to hear (who likes to hear that he is performing poorly?); in part because managers, friends and colleagues don’t always have or take time to do it.

That’s why training via role plays using familiar conversations that learners face in their everyday life is a good alternative. It makes users self-aware of how they interact with people and what their impact on them is.

Getting feedback on the conversation they had during training maximizes the self-awareness effect while also helping them find a way to improve their performance.

 

The self-assessment role in self-awareness

Before getting a feedback from someone to know how you really performed during the role play, it’s very interesting and instructive to self-assess your actions and behaviors.

The questions you can ask yourself can be classified in two types: internal and external self-awareness.
Internal self-awareness is the way you evaluate the impact of your actions.
External self-awareness is having a clear view of what people think of you.

To go deeper into this subject, do not hesitate to read our article (“Self-Awareness: the Single Factor Influencing the Most the Speed of Leadership Development”).

 

After or during a simulated conversation, we assess internal self-awareness, for example, by asking you to evaluate:

  • how the meeting went/is going
  • how you think you interacted with your friend or colleague
  • if you think he/she understood your point and arguments
  • if and how you put into practice some skills, etc.

 

These questions seem ridiculously simple and you may think the answers are obvious, but this “inner examination” is the best way to raise your self-awareness of your performance because:

  • You HAVE TO think objectively about your performance and the way you managed the conversation, but also about how the character perceived your approach. This is something we usually don’t do as part of our day-to-day activities.
  • It will make you put into practice during subsequent conversations all the elements that you became aware of during this role play.
  • In a more general way, assessing your own performance during the role play you’ve just done involves and engages you even more in the training, empowering you in the development of your performance.

 

SkillGym self-assessment questionnaire

 

Assessing your own performance during the role play you’ve just done involves and engages you even more in the training, empowering you in the development of your performance.

 

From self-assessment to feedback

Once you have self-assessed your performance, it’s time for you to receive feedback on what you did. There are two forms of feedback: subjective and objective.

Subjective feedback is usually an oral report from your counterpart, trainer or manager. It is defined as subjective because you receive his personal opinion on what you did.
He gives you his feelings, his perception and so this feedback depends on his characteristics, motivations, needs met, etc.

By receiving this feedback, you activate the right side of your brain, which is connected to feelings, imagination and holistic thinking, according to Roger W. Sperry’s right brain-left brain theory.

 

On another hand, the objective feedback consists within a set of metrics and measurable data and figures that provide information about your performance.
This can be, for example, a customer feedback survey, software results obtained after a training, etc.

By receiving this kind of feedback, you activate the left side of your brain, connected to logic, facts and analytical thinking.

 

What your brain hemispheres prefer

 

That’s why receiving both kinds of feedback is twice as efficient. You activate both sides of the brain and, by doing so, have a full vision of your performance as it raises your awareness of your true skill level.

 

Combine emotional feedback and analytical metrics: the Digital Role Play solution

As we said earlier, self-awareness is a skill and, like all skills, it needs to be regularly trained to improve.
Additionally, skills can improve or worsen over time as your strengths, weaknesses, motivations and goals evolve with your experience. That’s why regular practice helps you maintain it.

 

In order to put this skill into practice, it is shown that Digital Role Plays like SkillGym are very efficient. As it places the learners in real conditions of a familiar situation, it helps them see if they have the appropriate qualities, skills and behaviors for the task.

And in order to change them, repeated practice is the best way, as demonstrated in our article (“Why Use Interactive Storytelling in Training: Benefits of Role Plays”) on mirror neurons. Mirror neurons record what you see, hear and learn and thus help you unconsciously assimilate, repeat and improve your actions and behaviors.

 

The self-awareness skill can improve or worsen over time, as your strengths, weaknesses, motivations and goals evolve with your experience. That’s why regular practice helps you maintain it.

 

And thanks to digital technology, combining metrics and emotions has never been easier.

In SkillGym simulators:

  • You can simulate in a safe environment one of the typical conversations you have with your teammates and managers by meeting a real character with his own needs, personality and moods.
  • Then, after the meeting, you will be asked to assess your performance based on different questions on your behaviors, skills, approach, etc.
  • You will receive an emotional feedback from the teammate or the manager you’ve just talked with. He will give his personal opinion on your approach and attitude during the meeting.
  • Finally, you will be provided objective results and metrics in order to know exactly what your performance was: global performance, objectives reached, skills and behaviors, etc. Even your self-awareness is calculated according to your self-assessment.

 

 

The character’s feedback is always combined with objective metrics to give you a full overview of your approach

 

Using this unique approach, SkillGym is able to provide enough data for both your left and right hemispheres to process thus helping you raise your self-awareness on your strengths and weaknesses.
By knowing yourself better, you can focus on improving!

 

Conclusion

In adult learning, self-awareness is key.
Knowing what your skills and motivations are helps you focus on what the problems are, what you have to improve on and how you can do it.

To raise your self-awareness on your skills and improve them, SkillGym and its Digital Role Plays are the solution.

In a safe training environment, you can face as many simulated scenarios as you want, self-assess your performance, receive emotional feedback and evaluate your results thanks to objective metrics.

 

Do you want to go more in depth into the SkillGym approach? Don’t hesitate to read our article (“How AI Helps Delivering a Better SkillGym Training Experience”).
If you’re interested in the theories behind our approach, then why not read this article “Learning Theories Supporting SkillGym Methodology”?

If you are interested in our work and approach, book a 1-hour discovery call here.

Develop leadership through better conversations, discover SkillGym!
SCHEDULE A DISCOVERY CALL

Written By
Anne-Laure Blanco
I love to turn life into pedagogical stories. My challenge is to make storytelling as powerful as real-life experience. For a real immersive User Experience.
Contact Anne Laure
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Why Use Interactive Storytelling in Training: Benefits of Role Plays

 

Training adults is always a challenge: adults have enough experience to have already built their own opinions, ideas and habits, which are hard to change.
Besides, they don’t want to waste time, so training has to be quick, efficient and concrete.

That’s why interactive storytelling is a good combo in training: since it reminds them of everyday-life situations, it immediately speaks to them.

Tell me and I forget.
Teach me and I may remember.
Involve me and I learn.
– Benjamin Franklin

 

Adult learning: a bit of theory

The field of adult learning has been the subject of dozens of studies over the years and different theories have emerged.
According to Malcolm Shepherd Knowles’s Andragogy theory, adults don’t learn like children. And for several reasons:

  • Adults need a purpose: kids go to school because they have to, as their parents went before them, and because they are told to. Adults need to know why they have to learn.
    It can be a future promotion, acquiring new skills or knowledge, or for a new experience, but regardless of the impetus, adults need to have clear objectives. If they don’t, they will be reluctant to be trained and ultimately learn nothing.

 

  • Adults rely on their experience: adults already have a good deal of experience and background, whether it is social, academic or professional experience, and it must be taken into account in their training.
    They already have their own way of thinking and analyzing situations and problems, they have their own ideas and opinions. That’s why training must feed off of all of these elements to bring something fundamentally new.

 

  • Adults don’t like theory: unlike children who learn perfectly well through books and theoretical lessons, adults need task-oriented learning. In other words, they learn best when they “practice”.
    Give a problem to an adult and, for him, to solve it and by doing so meeting the challenge is far more effective than any book you can give him.

 

  • Adults like doing things by themselves: whether out of self-pride or search for respect, adults don’t like too much guidance. They tend to prefer autonomous learning and being able to try, even if that means making mistakes and having to start all over again.
    By providing the learner an environment where he can try and learn by himself, you will make the training far more effective.

 

Adults need task-oriented learning. In other words, they learn best when they “practice”.

 

Storytelling: the answer to adult training

Let’s face it, traditional learning methods are becoming obsolete. It was shown that passive learning like reading, listening and seeing implies that the learner is more prone to forget what he has been taught within 24 hours.

On the other hand, active learning like discussion by storytelling and practice by doing are far more efficient, with a retention rate that can reach 75% after 24 hours.

 

 

First of all, what is storytelling? It is a way to carry a message or a lesson through a story, an example of a real situation.
It can be a case study or a role play, for example.

Storytelling helps you share an experience while involving people in a familiar and safe environment.

 

As it immerses the learners into a concrete, believable and engaging scenario, it helps them gain knowledge through examples and encourages reflection and discussion. It helps the learners think about their past experience.

The information collected is also easier to remember as the learner can identify himself in the situation and reproduce later what he has heard, seen and learned, and by doing so, change his behavior, habits and attitudes.

That’s what makes storytelling one of the most effective methods in adult learning.

 

Thanks to storytelling, the learner can identify himself in the situation and reproduce later what he has heard, seen and learned and by doing so, change his behavior, habits and attitudes.

 

SkillGym puts storytelling at the heart of its training method. Our Digital Role Plays are all based on well-defined situations and scenarios that users face in their everyday life: at work, at home, with friends, with colleagues, etc.
These simulations train you to face them the best way possible.

 

These simulations also include a lot of benefits in training:

  • Thanks to the simulations, the user has a purpose and is active in his training. The scenario gives him objectives he has to reach to complete the task assigned. This means that he will remember what he has learned during the simulation better.
  • We bring him a tool where he can put into practice what he knows to solve the problem.
  • The user finds an engaging conversation where he can feel involved and immersed in something new and familiar at the same time, something that he will be able to reproduce in real life.

And last but not least, we let him do it by himself. He can practice autonomously, when he has time to do so, giving him the opportunity to try as many times as he wants, make mistakes and start again, until he has learned the required skills to reach his goals.

 

 

The Deja-vu effect: mirror neurons at work

For SkillGym, the “Deja-vu effect” is THE key benefit of our method and approach.

Read this article (“Self-Awareness: the Single Factor Influencing the Most the Speed of Leadership Development”) for more information on the Deja-vu learning trigger.

Scientific research from Dr. V.S. Ramachandran shows that in our brain, special neurons called mirror neurons automatically apply what the brain sees and does during a simulated scenario.
As mirror neurons are related to imitation behaviors, they are a great tool in training.

 

Since our brain doesn’t see the difference between reality and a very realistic simulation, training on a simulation activates the mirror neurons, which put into practice in real life what they saw and learned during a simulation.

 

 

As people constantly train and practice, their mirror neurons make them unconsciously change and improve their habits without them even noticing it.

That’s why SkillGym encourages a scheduled and regular training regimen: repeating the best skills and behaviors over and over again in the simulations helps the user assimilate them easier and faster and then replicate them in real life.

 

Storytelling is not only about stories

Story is important, that’s true, but not the only piece. The characters you meet in the scenarios and the way you interact with them is crucial.
Your way of leading the conversation will help you reach your goal…or not.

Because you don’t talk to, support or manage introverted people the same as you do exuberant ones. The way you look at the situation will also depend on your skills to define the type of person you have in front of you.

 

In SkillGym, we give the characters of our simulations a full biography: age, job, family. We also define their explicit and implicit needs, their problems and their personality.

That means that we also take into account their behavior, their way of thinking and communicating with others and their reactions to stressful situations.
Our objective is to create characters that are totally defined in any aspect, just like real human beings.

 

This is where we reach authenticity: by providing an immersive experience where every single detail, each nuance of a SkillGym Digital Role Play character resembles real life. In fact, each character can even be described according to the several psychometric models that have been developed by prominent researchers, such as Marston’s DISC®, the Wholebrain® or the MBDI® models.

That’s what makes our Digital Role Plays realistic and instructive for the learner (more on our psychometric approach to character development in this article “Building Authentic Characters for Effective Digital Role Plays”).

 

Because you don’t talk to, support or manage introverted people the same as you do exuberant ones, the way you look at the situation will also depend on your skills to define the type of person you have in front of you.

 

 

Our main goal, as we said, is to involve the user in the story. That’s why we decided to make him a real interested party in the scenario.
In order to do that, we jumped from static storytelling, where the user is only a spectator to the story, to interactive storytelling, where the user fully participates and interacts with the character.

By doing so, the user creates changes and influences the actual course of the story. The possibilities are countless, that’s why our stories are not predefined, and each of the user’s decisions has consequences.

 

A quick look at a SkillGym Digital Role Play

During the simulation, the learner will interact with a real character, not a puppet or an avatar. The character is embodied by a real actor, with a real body language, personality, way of talking…

You can find more information about the building of a Digital Role Play in this article (“Digital Role Plays, the Best Way to Develop Conversational Leadership”).

The objective is to have the most realistic simulation possible, so that the mirror neurons can come into action and help the learner improve his behavior and skills unconsciously and effectively.

 

Besides, having a real person in front of you will make the situation more familiar and you will bond to the character and interact more easily with him/her.

Your approach will have visible consequences on the scenario and on the character’s mood, which you can identify thanks to his/her body language.

 

A SkillGym simulation lasts between 10 to 20 minutes, from the preparation of the meeting to the debriefing and results. Why?

  • Because we consider that people are busy and have little time to train,
  • Because a short, but repeated effort brings about better results than a single long one,
  • Because long simulations can annoy users and cause them to lose focus,
  • Because we want to focus on what’s essential and not include details that have very little training interest.

 

The story we are telling is defined according to several criteria: the type of conversation based on the skills the user needs to train on and the type of problems/situations that the user has to face.

It can be, for example, supporting a teammate who was discriminated against at work, giving a feedback to a collaborator with a low performance, solving a conflict between two people, delegating a task to someone, etc.

Their common trait? They are situations that the user may encounter in his day-to day life. 

 

After the simulation, the user will receive feedback from the character. He or she will give his subjective opinion to a relative or a colleague about the conversation you’ve just had.

This unique asset will raise the learner’s awareness on his behaviors, skills and approach in the conversation. It will help him understand the consequences of what he does and make him reflect on what he could change in his approach to improve his performance.

 

Characters talking about the conversation you’ve just had with them

 

It’s always easy to say “I’ll change” just after a conversation, it’s not that easy to really do it in the long term.

That’s why the user will also have what we call a “cold feedback”: you will see the result of your conversation on the character a few days/weeks later.
With cold feedback, the user can really see if his approach and behavior during the conversation concretely changed the character’s approach and if he really reached the objectives or not.

 

2 weeks after the conversation, you see what the character is doing

 

Conclusion

Adult learning is evolving, and storytelling appears as the best option to make people change their habits. It’s realistic, engaging, and it involves learners trying and doing things by themselves.

Thanks to Digital Role Plays and scheduled training, SkillGym helps users improve their skills, behaviors and performance effortlessly, providing them a safe environment to complete conversations with authentic characters, who have their own personality and needs, and giving them the opportunity to make mistakes and try as many times as they want with no consequences on others.

 

Did you find this article interesting? Then, to know more about this subject, don’t hesitate to read our article (“8 Ways your skills will improve by practicing on Digital Role Plays”).

You want to go into the learning theories more in depth, then Learning Theories supporting SkillGym methodology was written for you.

If you are interested in our work and approach, book a 1-hour discovery call here.

 

Develop leadership through better conversations, discover SkillGym!
SCHEDULE A DISCOVERY CALL

Written By
Anne-Laure Blanco
I love to turn life into pedagogical stories. My challenge is to make storytelling as powerful as real-life experience. For a real immersive User Experience.
Contact Anne Laure
Leave a Reply