SkillGym Analytics provides the trainee with extensive information, offering the possibility to delve deep into the dynamics of a conversation in order to understand how and where behaviors can improve.

However, understanding how behaviors interact with one another and which rules influence the different KPIs, requires some fundamental knowledge of the behavioral models and methodology behind SkillGym.

In this article, we’ll review some basic information that can be very useful in accurately reading the SkillGym conversation analytics and in fully understanding how our scoring criteria work.

1) Confidence

The first and most important KPI in SkillGym is CONFIDENCE.

• From a conceptual perspective, Confidence measures the degree of courage, determination, fearlessness and self-perceived experience with which leaders approach a conversation.
  From this perspective, confidence increases with experience: The more the conversation is held and the more the outcomes are reflected upon, the higher the confidence over time. Ultimately, it is the performance in conversations that matters.
• From a practical perspective, SkillGym measures Confidence as the result of the overall quality with which each specific skill is used throughout the conversation. We consider not only the absolute quality of each behavior, but also the context: The specific situation and the flow (dynamic development) of the conversation.

Consider that:

• In order to be well used, a skill might require a different behavior depending on the specific context. This means the same skill can be developed by using different behaviors as the context varies.
• Behaviors are “hidden” in the way the user’s sentences are presented. For example, a text box saying, “How would you like to proceed?” includes a behavior named “asking open-ended questions” related to a skill named “Asking questions”.
• Whether such behavior scores high or low depends on the context in which it is used. SkillGym measures such scores while automatically taking into account the entire (and dynamic) flow of the conversation.

The best way to improve on Confidence in SkillGym is to select sentences that you deem not only appropriate from a dialogue perspective, but also fitting in the real-time context (with whom you are talking to, how is it going so far, etc.).

Over time, by using the post-conversation analyses with the Augmented Replay, you will find it easier and easier to make this decision based on the understanding of the body language of the character in front of you.

2) Self-Awareness

Our second most important KPI is called Self-Awareness.

Self-Awareness measures the quality of the self-perception of the performance, as compared to the evaluation done by SkillGym.

This is a very important KPI since a higher level of Self-Awareness is normally associated with better performance and a faster improvement track.

SkillGym measures Self-Awareness in this way:

• At the end of the conversation, you are presented with a self-assessment comprised of a few questions in which you evaluate your performance based on certain competencies/skills/behaviors.
• SkillGym will make the same evaluation based on your actual performance.
• The comparison between the two values results in the self-awareness score.
• The higher the self-awareness score, the closer the two evaluations are to each other.

One very interesting article about Self-Awareness and its importance as a fundamental KPI in soft-skills development can be found here (“Self-Awareness: the Single Factor Influencing the Most the Speed of Leadership Development”).

3) Objectives

In SkillGym, Objectives are three specific task-oriented outcomes that the trainee is asked to achieve during the conversation.

For each conversation, the three objectives are well outlined in the preparation room and, during the conversation, they are connected to three specific steps of the dialogue.

The Augmented Replay shows the position of the objectives using three small, numbered icons that can be found attached to the general timeline of the conversation at the bottom of the screen.
Their color (green or red) shows the outcome; clicking the icon will open a pop-up with a detailed description of the reasons why the objective has or has not been achieved.

The way SkillGym calculates the outcome of each objective is a bit tricky.

One of the common mistakes is to think that there is a 100% correlation between the score of Confidence and the achievement of the conversation objectives.

Although this is true in most cases (great behaviors generate great quality of the conversation that, in the end, will generate the achievement of the objectives), SkillGym is not a deterministic exercise. It is primarily a simulation where the contextual flow of the conversation matters a lot.

So for example, in certain cases even just a small deception along the way (for example an unlucky sentence at a certain point of the conversation) could upset the character to the point where at the moment of deciding whether or not to adhere to what you propose (typically one of the objectives of the conversation) he will react the other way.

The result could then be:

• A reasonably high score in Confidence (in our example one or two low-scoring behaviors won’t affect this score that much), but
• Still one (or sometimes more) objectives not achieved

Of course, this won’t happen that frequently. However, it is important to keep in mind that every behavior counts in a conversation, which is why we separate these two important KPIs – Confidence and Objective – to support trainees in experiencing the actual degree of balancing between the two dimensions.

It can even occur sometimes that the character shows a good reaction (You can check this inside the Augmented Replay, by taking a look at the single objective; in the picture below it’s where it says “genuine”).

The objective can still be marked as “not achieved” because of the trainee’s earlier behaviors that will still impact the outcome at the end of the conversation. (In this case, the simulation presumes that the character’s good – still instantaneous – reaction will be overcome by the overall weight of some negatively associated behaviors).

Again, this won’t happen frequently, but it’s worth considering as a good lesson.

4) Phases

SkillGym provides the trainees with the opportunity to understand the impact of their behaviors at different phases of a conversation. Although the conversation is a continuum where every single step is influenced by what happened before and influences what will happen next, for the purpose of learning and development, it is interesting to analyze its dynamics by splitting the entire exercise into smaller chunks.

At this level, the Analytics will present a certain number of macro-steps (or “phases”) for which the trainees can understand the relative quality of their Confidence score for each step. Such score is measured in percentage and also visualized with a very intuitive color code.

This allows trainees to work on these metrics in order to select a specific area of the conversation upon which to improve.

5) Competencies

We discuss how a Competency model works in SkillGym in this very interesting article (“Making a Competency Model Truly Actionable in People’s Development”), which we recommend reading for a more in-depth description of this important set of KPIs.

In short:

• Competencies are measured on observable behaviors, and observable behaviors are the way the dialogue is built.
• So, every time you choose a sentence, you are expressing one observable behavior.
• According to the specific context in which that sentence was used, such behavior will get a score.
• The scores of different behaviors – measured along the way – are summed up according to SkillGym’s competency mapping model (most often remapped on the competency model of our customer).

Since competencies are an aggregated measure, their interpretation is more powerful when analyzed as the result of multiple conversations played over time. However, they can be a good indicator even at the end of a single conversation.

In fact, many employees are presented with Competency models that sometimes look a little abstract and they are not easy to apply to everyday behaviors.  That’s why measuring the outcome of a conversation against a competency model can be an useful exercise.

What’s next

Imagine how much faster and smarter your Leaders can grow their skills, gain confidence and self-awareness as well as gain experience in Critical Conversations by practicing in a Digital Role Play system like SkillGym, which provides up to eight different learning triggers of this kind.

You may now be interested in trying the power of SkillGym.

Please also peruse our website. There are plenty of inspiring pre-recorded webinars and articles. Of course, we would be delighted to continue this conversation with you; simply book a 1-hour discovery call here.

Written By

Andrea Laus

Andrea has 20 years of experience in the industry of digital learning. Since over 10 years now he designs and develop interactive simulations featuring video and AI to bring immersive and authentic digital experiences to leadership coaches worldwide.

Contact Andrea

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.

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

The importance of authenticity

Authenticity is crucial to working in a realistic experience with the emotional aspects, and it is one of the key elements in the learning design of each simulator.

By authenticity we mean that the simulated experience is as close as possible to real life since it contains the same elements, resources and limitations that the user would have in his everyday experience.

Moreover, and most importantly, it’s also paramount to consider the character’s reaction and attitude, the words he uses to describe the situation, and his opinions after the meeting. For this, we rely on well-accepted and recognized psychometric models that ensure that the Digital Role Play experience has the same learning value as a real one.

The three dimensions of a SkillGym character

Creating such authentic characters is one of the most important parts of our job.

Each time we build one of the characters that you will meet virtually in SkillGym, we outline three dimensions around which the plot is deployed:

1. The character’s social background, describing his age, sex, marital status and so on
2. The character’s needs
3. The character’s personality, the third and most critical aspect

The key to efficient Digital Role Play is having characters who have a consistent behavior and who reflect the most common counterparts you can find or the most difficult ones to face.

Human’s pursuit of needs

To describe our characters’ needs, we rely on the hierarchy depicted by Abraham Maslow.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory in psychology comprising a five-tier model of human needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (source)

This five-stage model can be divided into deficiency needs and growth needs.
Each SkillGym character comes with two different layers of needs belonging to any of those levels according to the needs of the plot and of the situation.

This allows for our characters become real, bringing to the stage the same features as any human being:

1. Their explicit needs, clear and evident needs that come out naturally during the conversation as the primary expression of the characters
2. Their implicit needs, the subtler and not immediately shown impulses, that have to be discovered and considered by the user during the simulation to make sure that the conversation becomes truly fruitful

Each SkillGym character is a complex individual, making the experience of a conversation not just a mere exercise of techniques, but a deep dive into listening to other people to understand their hidden triggers, motivations and fears.

We believe this is the only way to go through a shallow relationship that regularly does not lead to results.
Training on SkillGym means developing the awareness of the other, which in turn, develops our own self-awareness.

Forging the personality of a Digital Role Play Character

To create realistic and reliable characters, each time we design the key tracts of their personality, we refer to well-established models that are widely accepted worldwide and that help to define the most important elements of how those character will behave and think.

We find it particularly useful to refer to widely accepted models, because they already have a wide application in different contexts and also are well-known and used for different purposes like assessment, analysis, change management, strategic decisions, etc.

The three models we normally refer to are the DISC, the HBDI (also known as Whole Brain) and the MBTI.
They vary in terms of purpose, angle of observation and meaning in what they try to describe.

This makes their integration even more interesting, because it is possible to take advantage of their differences synergistically.

We don’t intend to delve deep into each model in this article. If you would like to learn more about their backgrounds and details, the internet provides numerous sources of great information on these models.
At this juncture, we’d like to present how you can recognize some traits of each model in the psychometric structure of SkillGym characters.

The DISC model is a popular assessment tool that focuses on how people behave in a particular situation, and how they are perceived by others.
It’s a four-factor model in which the four dimensions are coded by a color and a letter: D for Dominance, I for Influence, S for Steadiness and C for Conscientiousness.

According to this model, a person is usually one-color-dominant and can be associated to mainly one of the four dimensions.

This chart clearly shows the model and its four profiles.

A schematic description of the DISC model (source)

The HBDI is based in the Whole Brain Thinking methodology, and it is another four-factor model.
Unlike the DISC that focuses on people’s behaviors, the HBDI focuses on how people process the information and on their thinking preferences.

That’s why people described with this model usually are not one-color defined, but they relate to more than one dimension, with different weights.

This chart shows the model and its four selves based on their thinking preferences.

A schematic representation of the HBDI model (source)

The MBTI model (sometimes called 16-personalities) is based on the theory of psychological types described by C. G. Jung, and identifies 16 different personality types based on the differences in the ways people prefer to use their perception and judgment.

The combination of many factors determines the profile. In brief, here are the factors considered: favorite world (Extraversion or Introversion), information (Sensing or Intuition), decisions (Thinking or Feeling) and structure (Judging or Perceiving).

This chart shows all 16 personalities in what is called a “type table”.

The 16 personality types listed in a “type table” (source)

SkillGym characters are inspired by well-known psychometric models that ensure that the Digital Role Play experience has the same learning value as a real one.

Like a real human being, each of our SkillGym’s characters behaves, thinks, sees the world, makes decisions and processes information in a distinctive way that can somehow be described consistently and according to the angles provided by the above models.

Without being the result of the mere application of each single model -SkillGym is NOT an exercise of style or the by-product of a modelized theory.
Each character becomes authentic and sustainable because it is the result of careful crafting around the most fundamental elements driving human beings.

This is the same that the most widely-accepted psychometric models and theories define and describe.

What about characters’ backgrounds?

Surely the personality of the character drives his behavior during the simulation, but also his previous history and background have a role in how he behaves in a conversation.

That’s why the complexity of a human-to-human conversation in our digital roleplay is also reflected in the availability of details given to the user before the meeting.

Thus, before starting, the user is encouraged to read the details about the character (including his social background, his personality and approach as well as his hierarchy of needs), where and why the conversation will take place (physical location, what role the trainee is going to play) and other details about the context (such as the scope of the conversation and any intermediate goals to be achieved).

This allows the learner to apply his skills and decide on a strategy just as he would normally do in real life.

Each situation, one style

When providing soft skills training, role play is one of the most effective strategies because it allows learners to practice a difficult conversation in a protected environment, while having the opportunity to discuss outcomes and receive personalized feedback.

In this context, the situation that is depicted in the simulator is very important and it is part of the training experience.

It’s within the situation that things, gestures, words and attitudes gain a meaning. Here we find it very useful to refer to the situational leadership theory, by which there is no single “best” style of leadership.

Effective leadership is task-relevant, and the most successful Leaders are those who adapt their leadership style to the performance readiness (ability and willingness) of the individual or group they are attempting to lead or influence.

Careful practice in the most common and the most critical situations that can happen in real life helps build confidence in the trainees and generate a “Deja-vu” effect in the most efficient way.

The dialogue between the user and the character of a SkillGym Digital Role Play takes place by selecting from a set of questions and answers that are designed to fit the most common communication styles and possible behaviors.

Each sentence represents one possible application of the requested skills and allows the conversation to flow according to one’s own style and topics.
If the user would not use any of the three sentences presented, he is encouraged to select the one he feels is the closest to his style.

In any case, the character will react according to a number of factors that are governed by SkillGym’s smart algorithm and consider all the elements, including the personality structure that builds up the specific character.

Thanks to SkillGym’s Augmented Replay, all the nuances of the character’s reactions and nonverbal communication can be reviewed in detail after the conversation has been played:

The “Augmented Replay” showing the body language of the character in details

The “Augmented Replay” showing the mood of the character according to the reference model

The importance of theoretical foundations

Since the very beginning of our research on human behaviors and leadership styles, we were absolutely convinced of the importance of building Digital Role Play’s character on solid theoretical foundations.
And facts have shown that we were right.

In fact, each of us faces other people daily and each of them carries a very complex structure of personality and a mix of traits that contribute to the perception that we build about the others, even if most of us do not immediately recognize it.

Designing a training tool as delicate and complex as a Digital Role Play without considering those little, but so important nuances of human beings, would spoil the entire exercise and cut off all the value that human-to-human interaction can provide to self-growth.

For those of you who are interested in knowing more about how we bring together these fascinating behavioral concepts with the most advanced and cutting-edge technology, we have written a very interesting article (“How AI Helps Delivering a Better SkillGym Training Experience”) telling the story behind our AI algorithms.

More on the leadership style models that we consider when developing a Digital Role Play can be found in this article (“Digital Role Plays, the Best Way to Develop Conversational Leadership”).

Finally, to experience the result of this methodological and technological journey, the best thing to do is to book a 1-hour discovery call of SkillGym Digital Role Play.

Written By

Livio Mariani

Contact Livio

Why adult education is different

Adult education is very different from education that we all received in school in terms of purpose, motivation, and roles.

The usual comparison is made between Pedagogy and Andragogy, but in this chart we want to summarize the main differences that every adult trainer should be clear about during his activity.

Adults learners need to know why they have to learn something, and what advantages will they have once they have learned it.

How to efficiently teach to adult learners?

This is the main question that drives our learning design. We rely on Andragogy as theorized by Malcolm Knowles [4][5] to create engaging and effective training experiences.

In brief, this theory states that adult learning should recognize and appreciate the existing experience of the learner, has to be practical and problem-centered, and related to topics relevant for their work or personal life. Also, learners should be involved in planning and evaluation.

That’s why in our simulators, the learner is immersed in a realistic situation close to this job context in which he has to use his existing skills at his best to achieve the assigned objectives.

The self-evaluation and the learning plans ensure that the learner is involved in every phase of the learning process. Moreover, all the scripts are created in collaboration with an SME (Subject Matter Expert) who works in similar situations and provides us with real-life situations and wording to ensure an experience as close as possible to a real one.

Adult education should recognize and appreciate the existing experience of the learners, be practical and problem-centered, and related to topics relevant for their work or personal life.

How to implement an experiential approach in learning?

Another important part of our methodology is based on the Experiential learning theory by D.A. Kolb, stating that learning is the process where knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. The theory proposes a cyclical model of learning, made of four steps: experience, observation, reflection, experimentation.

This theory drives the UX in our simulators since the user has to complete the conversation, do a self-evaluation to analyze his performance, deep dive in a conversation already completed to reflect on his actions and do another simulation to apply what he has learned.

An example of self-evaluation proposed after a simulation

The “Augmented Replay” where the user can analyze his performance and mistakes

Why it is important to leverage previous experience of adult learners?

We talked about how important the previous experience of the learner is in SkillGym methodology. Another theory backing this idea is the Functional context theory, as theorized by Sticht. Students learn best when instruction is based on a prior knowledge base, making use of long-term memory.

Instructional strategies must be developed that require students to make use of their language and problem solving skills.

This is what we have in mind when we build the objectives for each story: the problems to be solved are created to leverage and improve the existing skills, through a critical conversation that requires the use of communication skills at their best.

Instructional strategies must be developed that require students to make use of their language and problem solving skills.

Why simulation is a key aspect of SkillGym methodology?

To answer this question we can rely on many theories. In addition to the principles of Andragogy that point towards an experiential and problem-based training for adult learners (which we addressed above), we should mention the Simulation theory by Goldman and Shanton, who affirm that simulation has a role in mind reading, memory, and prospection.

In particular, mind reading involves the imitation, copying or re-experience of the target’s mental processes. Another theory supporting the value of simulation over other, more passive methodologies, is the Information Processing Theory by Craik, Lockhart and Bransford.

According to this theory, the information is processed in various ways (perception, attention, labelling, and meaning), thereby impacting the ability to access the information later on. This means that the information will be more easily retrieved if the way it is accessed is similar to the way in which it was stored.

So learning something in a simulation will let the learner recall it more easily in a later situation similar to the simulated one.
Following Csíkszentmihályi’s theory of Flow state during learning, there are eight mental states that can happen during learning.

Flow is what learners experience when engaged in an activity that is challenging their skills level, resulting in immersion and concentrated focus that can result in deep learning and high levels of satisfaction.

Training on a SkillGym simulator keeps the learner in the “flow” state as much as possible thanks to its realistic and interactive approach.

A simulated conversation with a colleague

Flow is what learners experience when engaged in an activity that is challenging their skills level, resulting in immersion and concentrated focus that can result in deep learning and high levels of satisfaction.

Why the feedback given from the virtual character is important in improving user’s skills?

The feedback gives the unique possibility to see what the counterpart could think about our performance once the conversation is over. This is an information that is impossible to have in real life, and represents one of the most important triggers for the user to generate powerful questions for himself or his trainer (i.e. “Why didn’t the character accept my point?”, “What did I do wrong?”, etc.).

The Operant conditioning by Skinner states that behaviors that are reinforced will tend to continue, while behaviors that are punished will eventually end.

The feedback is a great opportunity to reinforce positive behaviors (by acknowledging the acceptance from the counterpart) and remove negative ones (by realizing what the REAL outcome of bad behaviors is on the other person).

After this qualitative feedback, the user is presented with quantitative feedback that shows numerical results about general performance, self-assessment coherence, and efficacy in each phase of the conversation.

The system also provides a representation of the performance in each phase and shows if the objectives have been achieved or not. This tool is useful to identify the areas of strength and weaknesses as well as to monitor the improvement and the actual removal of negative behaviors.

The same colleague commenting on the conversation later, during a phone call to a friend

What is the best way of measuring user’s soft skills application?

This is one of the most discussed topics in soft skills training. The terms “competence”, “skill”, “behaviors”, etc. are interpreted many different ways.

The Psychological Behaviorism as theorized by Staats explains that a person’s psychology can be explained through observable behavior.

That’s why we describe the skills as very clear observable behaviors, which degrade as the user’s performance deteriorates. Moreover, the skills used in a simulator can be grouped into competences to fit different training needs and contexts.

The importance of Gamification

Malone et al. theorized that the engagement gamers experience can be translated to an educational context to improve learning and influence student behavior.

Some elements to be included are: narrative, feedback, fun, scaffolded learning with challenges that increase, progress indicators like points and badges. All of these elements are present in the SkillGym user experience.

The quantitative feedback of a conversation that had a bad outcome

All the theories described in this article have been widely dealt with in their authors’ books.

In the attached bibliography, you can find all of the references if you want do enhance your knowledge about these topics.

Feel free to comment below or book a 1-hour discovery call of SkillGym.

Bibliography

1. S. Barry Issenberg, William C. McGaghie, Emil R. Petrusa, David Lee Gordon, and Ross J. Scalese. “Features and Uses of High-Fidelity Medical Simulations That Lead to Effective Learning: a BEME Systematic Review”. Medical Teacher, 27(1):10{28}, 2005.

2. Margaret Bearman, Debra Nestel, and Pamela Andreatta. “Oxford Textbook of Medical Education”. Oxford University Press, 2013.

3. De Ascaniis S., Cantoni L., and Sutinen E. and Talling R. “A Lifelike Experience to Train User Requirements Elicitation Skills. In Design, User Experience, and Usability: Understanding Users and Contexts.” DUXU 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 10290. Springer, Cham, 2017.

4. M. S. Knowles, The Modern Practice of Adult Education: From Pedagogy to Andragogy. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall/Cambridge.

5. M. S. Knowles et al. Andragogy in Action: Applying Modern Principles of Adult Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

6. M. S. Knowles, E.F. Holton, R.A. Swanson. The Adult Learner: The Definitive Classic in Adult Education and Human Resource Development. Burlington, MA: Elsevier.

7. Sticht T. G. Functional Context Education. Workshop Resource Notebook.

8. Sticht T.G. Functional Context Education: Making Learning Relevant.

9. K.Shanton, A. Goldman. Simulation Theory. fas-philosophy.rutgers.edu

10. C. D. Morris, J. D. Bransford, J.J. Franks, Levels of Processing Versus Transfer Appropriate Processing. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior.

11. F.I. Craik, R.S. Lockhart. Levels of Processing: A Framework for Memory Research. Journal of Verbal Learning and Vrbal Behavior.

12. D.A. Kolb. Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

13. M. Csíkszentmihályi. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.

14. T. W. Malone. What Makes Things Fun to Learn? A Study of Intrinsically Motivating Computer Games. Pipeline, 6(2), 50.

15. Y. Yang. Three Questions to Ask Before You Embark on Gamification. eLearn.

16. M. Leaning. A Study of the Use of Games and Gamification to Enhance Student Engagement, Experience and Achievement on a Theory-Based Course of an Undergraduate Media Degree. Journal of Media Practice.

17. B. F. Skinner, About Behaviorism. New York: Vintage Books.

18. Knowles, M.S., Holton III, E.F. & Swanson, R.A. The Adult Learner, 5th edition, Woburn, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Written By

Livio Mariani

Contact Livio

Being an L&D professional these days means to embark on one of the most exciting and complex journeys available in an organizational environment.

Being one who makes a true difference in Human Capital Development is not so common. It requires strong behavioral acumen, a great ability to link with other people and a vivid focus on the final objectives.

As sailors need a map and a compass to navigate dangerous seas with unexpected thunderstorms and hazards to reach the destination, L&D officers benefit from a clear strategy and a direct and unquestionable set of KPIs to drive the development of their people into the safe port of “true and sustainable behavioral change”.

L&D strategy sets the direction to make People Development the best ally of Business Objectives. Understanding the way these two vital aspects of each organization relate to each other, learning strategists define the Key L&D Performance Indicators that must be constantly monitored.

With this premise, building an effective L&D Strategy and having a clear set of L&D KPIs are two of the primary objectives of any aware L&D professional.
Continuous research on behavioral aspects of human beings and never-ending technological innovation supply the HR Department with a palette (maybe too wide) of information, elements, approaches and tools.

In my personal journey, I had and I still have the great privilege of meeting many amazing professionals involved in People Development (L&D officers, Training Managers, Executive Coaches, Trainers, etc.) in different areas of the globe (Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas).

In almost all of them, I found a deep passion for the dynamics of people and a strong desire to define a clear strategy to support their people in pursuing the L&D objectives.

Unfortunately, this is not the only thing I encountered. In my chats with them “a lot of frustration came out on the fact that as a lot of new theories, approaches and tools are constantly released, often some of these are not easily integratable in the designed L&D strategy”.
It results in organizations that tend to have a slow innovation pace on L&D-related topics.

As a Business Designer of SkillGym, I now strongly believe that ease and flexibility in integrating with different L&D strategies must be among the key characteristics of our Digital Role Play methodology and tool.

This article introduces how we achieved and keep on improving these aspects, describing how SkillGym can be effectively integrated into an L&D strategy.

From the initial steps of our design process, we placed a lot of effort in creating a Soft Skills Development System with a very strong concept (take a look at the page Why SkillGym on our website) and enough flexibility to not be considered an isolated island in the wide world of Human Capital Development from both a methodological and a technological point of view.

The result is based on some of the most discussed, studied and verified Learning Theories such as Andragogy, Experiential Learning, Functional Context, Gamification, etc.

Let me refer you to the article “Learning Theories Supporting SkillGym Methodology” by Giulio Tavarnesi, SkillGym Methodology and Content Manager, for an in-depth journey through the theoretical pillars of SkillGym.

Fitting L&D Strategy with the power of Smart Metrics data

Let’s start from a general consideration: SkillGym is structured in a modular way, offering a set of features that can be activated or not in accordance with the specific L&D needs.
On top of that, SkillGym provides a set of Smart Metrics to measure the individual improvements that can be prioritized and mapped to align with the L&D KPIs mentioned above.

To support this framework, SkillGym brings a lot of automation in the mix. Self-paced adaptive BootCamps are easily schedulable for learners from the platform in just a few clicks.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) makes the rest, defining and fine-tuning the most effective pace in accordance with their individual profiles.

Once the set of L&D KPIs is defined, you can simply leave it to work.
“SkillGym focuses on accelerating the Soft Skills Development path providing a safe and nurturing practical  training environment”.

It leverages eight smart learning triggers to drive behavioral change:

1. The counterpart body language
2. The counterpart emotional reactions
3. Objective measurement
4. Emotional feedback
5. The acquisition of a communication process
6. The challenge to achieve smart goals
7. The ability to critically review the performance
8. The Deja-vu trigger

Discover more about them in this article “8 Ways your skills will improve by practicing in Digital Role Plays”.

With a smart definition of KPIs, SkillGym becomes the best ally of your L&D Strategy, as it allows learners’ developments to be monitored in real-time and provides useful information to adapt and maximize its actionability.

I’ve recently had a chat with an L&D Manager about the impact made on L&D Strategy by the information provided by the tool. As her organization (a well-renowned bank) is adopting SkillGym to support a hundred of new-in-role managers to practicing on Critical Conversations (Giving Feedback, Delegating, etc.), the L&D manager activated for them a behavioral learning and maintenance BootCamp as part of the existing on-boarding phase.

From the data collected by SkillGym in the first six months of activity, the L&D Manager has been able to verify that the majority of the managers had an issue with the ability to stick to the defined learning program.

SkillGym underscored, for example, that many managers were used to completing simulation sessions very early in the morning, late at night or during the weekends. Digital Role Play conversations were rarely played in at a consistent time, as defined by the L&D manager’s schedule.

These data drove her to the conclusion that time management was a strong issue within this population.
Then, while keeping the Digital Role Play BootCamp active as continuous support for her managers, she decided to place priority on this topic, refining her L&D strategy and delivering a specific intervention to tackle this deficit.

As SkillGym measures eight Smart Metrics in real time, it is always possible to easily and  immediately:

• Find meaningful points of attention for both an individual learner or a group of them
• Analyze their impact on learners’ behaviors and business effectiveness
• Refine the L&D Strategy adapting it the individual learning paths

These Smart Metrics are grouped in two clusters (Results Metrics and Discipline Metrics). The first group includes Confidence, Self-Awareness, Self-Control and Learning Agility as Result Metrics.

The Discipline KPIs are Reliability, Focus, Effort and Balance.
All of them are introduced and explained in this article by Andrea Laus “Eight key metrics to monitor for ensuring a successful practical training on critical conversations”.

A consolidated methodology for flexible contexts

Another key element we kept in mind in the SkillGym development process has been (and, of course, still is) “the ability to meet different needs, in flexible and vary L&D contexts, such as Self-paced learning approaches and Tutor-led ones”.

SkillGym supports this flexibility relying on its consolidated methodology (see this article for an in-depth analysis of the “10 reasons why you should consider SkillGym for your next leadership development and maintenance program”) and the AI capability of offering precise and meaningful information to users.

Those precious behavioral insights can be used both by learners directly to empower their self-learning journeys and by tutors (L&D professionals, Trainers, Coaches, Mentors, etc.) as elements of evidence to be discussed and analyzed together with the learners.

Currently, in fact, SkillGym is integrated into the L&D strategies of many organizations to develop and maintain Conversational Leadership skills in different ways, such as:

• Self-paced continuous support for Critical Conversations practicing
• Barebones of tutor-led Learning Paths (e.g., Executive Coaching) as a generator of evidence to be discussed during the face-to-face session
• Leadership development tool integrated with on-demand remote support by a mentor or a coach
• Adaptive Learning platform where L&D managers can set (automatically or manually) dedicated BootCamps to tackle specific behavioral needs within the assisted communities
• Practicing “Learning by Doing” tool to be assigned in between class interventions and follow-up moments to measure and sustain the consistent behavioral change that is normally very hard to achieve with a “knowledge transfer” training intervention
• Engaging way to assess Conversational Leadership soft skills both for Talent Acquisition (screening and selection) and Talent Development (High Potentials evaluation, assessment before a training class, etc.)
• And many others…  🙂

Ensure homogeneity through Competencies Certification

The 8 Smart Metrics introduced above are measured by the SkillGym AI engine through the advanced analysis of the behaviors that play out during the Digital Role Play sessions by the learners together with their interactions with the platform (to report if they are able to stick to the learning paths designed for them).

Considering, in particular, the Results Metrics, these are calculated focusing on the ability of the user to act certain observable behaviors in an effective way in relation to specific stimuli received by AI during the live sessions.

Those behaviors are natively grouped into six competencies, but they can be re-shuffled and re-mapped to align, at a certain degree of coverage, with the proprietary Competency Models of different organizations.

Leverage this flexibility (once again 🙂 ), many of our clients employ SkillGym for Competencies Certification matters.

In our experience, all of our clients have found great value in the opportunity to rely on a platform that:

• Allows a homogeneous and objective competency certification
• Provides an immediate reach and coverage of the entire population to be certified, exploiting the power of digital assessment via internet
• Maintains the strong effectiveness of the “assessment by doing” approach overcoming its limitations in scalability
• Offers a centralized online environment where data can be analyzed, investigated and stored even for a population that may be geographically dispersed

Talent assessment

Applying the same approach used for the Competencies Certification, SkillGym can be an effective ally even for Talent Acquisition phases.

It provides a set of Smart Metrics that can be integrated with the results provided by the other tools or steps from the already-in-place recruiting process (psychometric surveys, face-to-face interviews, in-basket assessments, group interviews, etc.).

In regards of this topic, let me suggest taking a look at the Assessment feature page on the SkillGym website.

Alternatively, if you want to look in-depth into this topic, this article by Alessandro Guerrini on Measuring Attitude covers in detail how a behavioral simulator supports companies in finding the employees best suited for their specific needs.

Technologically ready to be plug&play

To conclude the list of the empowering elements to be considered in integrating SkillGym into an L&D strategy, let me go back to my inspiring conversations with L&D professionals mentioned in the first paragraph.

As an outcome of my chats, it’s crystal clear that new L&D approaches, theories and methodologies must be immediately actionable and integratable to be useful and used by organizations.

“At SkillGym, we develop a system able to go live quickly and to be available in seconds after the activation”.
It’s a SaaS (Software As A Service) subscription-based platform available on cloud via internet through different devices such as computers, tablets and smartphones.

Digital Role Play scenarios are at the disposal of the learners’ community right after the activation, while different levels of integrations with existing Learning Systems are available, from a simple SSO (Single Sign-On) -the preferred solution for the majority of our clients- to the creation of SCORM-compliant packages that can be accessed via LMSs (Learning Management Systems).

System requirements (available on this page) are very basic and allow organizations at different digitalization maturity levels to benefit from the impact of Digital Role Play adoption.

On the other side, SkillGym offers a high level of automatization. One of the best examples is in the enrollment phase, where a specific module called BootCamp allows L&D Managers to import and enroll wide populations of learners with just a few clicks.

Time to wrap up

In this article, I’ve done my best to describe how SkillGym can be effectively integrated into an L&D strategy.

Let’s summarize some key points:

• SkillGym is structured in a modular way, offering a set of features that can be activated or not in accordance with the specific L&D needs
• SkillGym provides a set of Smart Metrics to measure individual improvements that can be prioritized and mapped to align with specific L&D KPIs
• SkillGym brings a lot of automation to the table. Self-paced adaptive BootCamps are easily schedulable from the platform in few clicks. AI (Artificial Intelligence) does the rest
• SkillGym allows for real-time monitoring of learners’ developments and returns useful information to adapt and maximize their impact on business performance
• AI capability offers precise and meaningful information to learners and L&D Managers to maximize both self-paced and tutor-led development paths
• SkillGym can be employed in a variety of different contexts to assess, certify, develop and maintain Conversational Leadership skills
• SkillGym is a SaaS on cloud plug&play solution. It is available just seconds after the activation in a way that is very easily integratable with existing learning systems

I leave now to your imagination how you could integrate SkillGym into your L&D strategy, making it more effective for your people.

I hope to have provided a comprehensive overview of the reasons why SkillGym is a great ally to boost behavioral change and to build a stronger L&D Leadership Strategy.

Feel free to comment, ask about and share this article as the folks at SkillGym and I are eager to introduce more about and collect feedback on what we proudly develop every day.

Take a look at our website https://www.skillgym.com to get more information about our system and to be inspired by the content (articles, webinars on-demand, scientific papers, etc.) and follow our LinkedIn SkillGym page to stay tuned in and updated.

If you cannot wait to get in touch with us for a live demo of SkillGym in which you can directly experience a Digital Role Play “in action” and the smart metrics it is able to provide, you can visit this link and schedule a 1-hour discovery call with us. We will be happy to drive you into SkillGym and dive together into the journey of a learner on our platform.

Written By

Matteo Malatesta

Matteo is the head of business design at SkillGym. He supports the product design teams, bringing the voice of stakeholders to the discussion thanks to his international experience in the learning and development industry and his human-centered approach.

Contact Matteo

The concept of Adaptive Learning or Adaptive Training is becoming increasingly popular in the L&D community, as a way to make the learning program easier while have a greater impact on each individual trainee.

Basically, the idea behind Adaptive Learning is relying on technology and data to dynamically modify the contents, the schedule and possibly also the complexity of the learning tasks that are assigned to the learner, according to the updated results -and, let me add, discipline- tracked on the way.

Although several studies are published every year showing the positive impact of different approaches to Adaptive Learning, the scientific research is still trying to find a common trait to define the typical characteristic of a well-balanced adapting learning program.

The need for personalized training schedules

Two years ago, we at SkillGym started discussing how we could leverage the enormous amount of training data -usage and results- in a way that could possibly deliver a better and more personalized training experience for the Leaders engaged with our Digital Role Play System.

By that point, we already had extensive experience in defining efficient training programs for the development of leadership skills. In this article (“Three Case Studies and One Strategy to Keep Users Engaged with Digital Learning”), I discuss the importance of a well-designed schedule with several case studies in mind.

The scientific research is still trying to find a common trait to define the typical characteristic of a well-balanced adaptive learning program.

In fact, we noticed that the more the program was designed according to the actual needs of the trainees, the higher was the outcome in terms of ongoing engagement, declared satisfaction and performance improvements on the key metrics that we normally measure (see this article “8 Key Metrics to Ensure a Successful Practical Training on Critical Conversations” for more information on which metrics matter most in a conversational leadership training program).

However, finding the right fit every time for each individual trainee was not easy at the time. Keeping that fit up-to-date without referencing back to some form of AI algorithm would have generated a massive load of extra work for any L&D organization trying to keep up with the progressive needs of each trainee.

So we decided to move in the direction of a more structured way to manage the continuous variations required by a well-fitting leadership training program. The idea of Digital Fitness was born.

It came about as a result of the following considerations:

• Especially for conversational training, it is very important to let the trainees feel like the schedule is tailor-made -not just the content, but especially the pace. In fact, improving conversational skills and acquiring new leadership behaviors requires much more than a one-shot inspirational meet-up.
  You have to work hard and consistently. There is nothing worse than feeling overwhelmed by a program set by somebody else that never fits your busy agenda.

• At the same time, we love to consider the path to the mastery of conversational leadership as a fitness program rather than a learning or even a training activity. The difference may look subtle, but it is very important. It is never done with these skills. It’s not a on-off state where once you learn, it’s done.
  Rather, it’s a keep-it-fit situation: the more you practice, the better you perform. The less you practice, the faster you fall back to your old habits. This is where the metaphor of sports is appropriate. So given our vision, there is nothing better than “digital fitness” as a name to describe what we were after.

It took around two years to get to a proper and stable version of the algorithms behind SkillGym Digital Fitness, during which we continuously experimented, mixing the different variables that matter.

Start with the self-perceived needs

When trainers decide to enroll their Leaders in a SkillGym Bootcamp and activate our Digital Fitness program -as an alternative to manually scheduling trainees’ training programs- an automatic ongoing process of schedule fine-tuning starts.

The first step to define a healthy adaptive program is to listen to trainees’ needs, availability and habits.

We do this by delivering a preliminary online questionnaire to each trainee enrolled to a Digital Fitness SkillGym Program. The questionnaire is quite simple to fill out and normally take less than ten minutes.

It is divided into sections, for a complete discovery of the following aspects:

• Effort availability. How much training are you available to sustain?
• Favorite slots. We are all so busy, it’s best to ask when training best fits the trainees’ schedule.
• Self-perceived needs. What types of conversations are more critical?
• Other preferences (how they would like to make the appointments and more questions of this nature).

This information is collected and stored by SkillGym and represents the starting point for the individual plan definition.
In fact, SkillGym Digital Fitness initially takes for granted the preferences expressed by the trainee and starts setting the schedule accordingly.

Adjusting along the way

The large majority of the cases, however, suggest that reality is quite different from what people declare at their first day at the gym:

• On average, trainees tend to be busier than they think, so postponing or skipping training sessions becomes quite common.
• In the long run, real habits show up. So, quite frequently we see trainees ending up training on the same days of the week and very often also at the very same time slots, which is one facet that can be utilized.
• At the same time, a considerable percentage of trainees tend to overestimate or underestimate -some issues with self-awareness perhaps- their actual learning needs. So, it happens that they perform really well on certain conversations where they thought they would do poorly and vice versa.

Digital Fitness continuously monitors:

• When the trainee actually attends the training session
• What scores are achieved in the different conversations

and it automatically adjusts the ongoing schedule, adapting the dates of training, the frequency and the types of conversations to play on.

In this way, the initial preferences of the trainees are quickly overwritten by the practical evidence of what needs and availability they really have.

Fitting better and better

Any ongoing individual program is normally adjusted weekly or monthly, according to the pace or frequency of training. As soon as new information becomes available, SkillGym Digital Fitness tweaks the schedule accordingly.

At the same time, a historical track record is stored, so when a trainee enrolls in a new Bootcamp, the new preferences get compared to what happened in the past and Digital Fitness has a larger viewpoint to build a dedicated Bootcamp from day one.

On average, we see that the typical time required for Digital Fitness to have a significant understanding of the situation and adapt accordingly ranges between a few weeks and a few months. Of course, it depends on the number of interviews booked and played in between.

The more data that becomes available, the faster the learning from the system about the most appropriate schedule is.

The outcome of Digital Fitness schedule

Digital Fitness adapts the training program of each trainee by changing any of the following elements:

• The overall duration of the program, extending it or reducing it
• The frequency of practice, adjusting the number of interviews to be played within a certain time slot
• The timing of practice, according to the highest possible reliability of the user
• The number of repetitions -and the pedagogical approach to repetitions- of any single critical conversation
• The types of conversations, the types of characters, the types of subjects to practice on, according to the evolution of the Confidence score and/or other KPI that can be monitored

The result being a much more personalized path toward mastery in conversational leadership.

The impact of Digital Fitness

Since the introduction of Digital Fitness, we have been monitoring the impact of this technology, analyzing different points of view, with the scope of finding out where to improve and how our effort was possibly increasing the perceived value for the different types of users of SkillGym.

The evidence collected so far seem to show increasing attention of the user base toward the possibility offered by adapting the training path through the usage of AI and big data.

The main areas of impact are the following.

1. Higher trainee engagement

We noticed that a personalized and adaptive training path achieves on average between 25% and 37% extra engagement from trainees, measured as the level of Reliability.

Namely, how many times the user respects a previously scheduled appointment for a Digital Role Play. The higher the match, the higher the Reliability.

Look at this article (“8 Key Metrics to Ensure a Successful Practical Training on Critical Conversations”) to learn more about the key metrics of Conversational Leadership training.

2. Better pedagogical fit

There is almost always a bias between the initially declared training needs and the actual ongoing performance. Most of the times, trainees tend to overestimate their performance in those conversations where they perceive greater comfort and on the flip side, to underestimate their performance on those conversations that they perceive as less comfortable.

Digital Fitness big data suggests that on any initially set individual schedule, there is on average a shift of 25-30% in the parameters of frequency of recommended practice and mix of contents.

This is not necessarily bad news: the system goal is not to assess the ability of trainees to predict the best training path on day one. The scope is rather more to provide an increasing better-fitting approach to the ever-changing needs of each trainee.

3. Sweeter sentiment

85% of the SkillGym trainees report better perception in terms of schedule fit, both in terms of adaptability to their busy agenda and with regard to the match between the proposed training and their evolving self-perceived needs of practicing.

4. Results

We compared the results of manually-set programs and those defined on-the-go by Digital Fitness. On average, trainees following a Digital Fitness adaptive program outperformed the other group by 25% extra improvement on all the KPIs considered along the same period of time and with an overall comparable quantity of effort.

Clearly, adjusting the pace and the content mix makes a huge difference.

5. Less work for L&D

Digital Role Play does all this on its own. Of course, trainers can still take control of the assignments. But in practical terms, nobody does it.

On one hand, the system is very smart and is capable of adjusting the program while maintaining the overall expected effort/result balance within a reasonable range.
On the other, the amount of effort needed to achieve the same results in manual mode is simply crazy. Score one for AI.

6. Overall higher ROI

We can calculate training ROI in several ways. In this case, a meaningful approach could be that of comparing the effort done by L&D to adapt the individual training path, the overall sentiment of trainees, the extra results achieved, and the overall efficiency of the time spent on training.

Projections are very positive! Adaptive programs can really make a great difference when planning programs for conversational leadership training.

I hope you enjoyed this tour of one of our favorite features of SkillGym and hopefully I was able to clarify the tremendous benefits of adopting an adaptive training approach.

You are welcome to contact us to learn more about this subject including some case studies to share.

And please feel free to book a 1-hour discovery call of SkillGym.

Written By

Andrea Laus

Andrea has 20 years of experience in the industry of digital learning. Since over 10 years now he designs and develop interactive simulations featuring video and AI to bring immersive and authentic digital experiences to leadership coaches worldwide.

Contact Andrea

Some years ago, when we first started to think about developing conversational simulations, we were obsessed by finding a way to design truly realistic experiences.

In fact, the market was responding to the need for interactive training with simple branched solutions, where each choice of the user was leading to one pre-determined reaction from the simulation. The first “serious games” were popping up, presenting very simple scenarios where users could interact with puppets or avatar while making their way through short and very predictable branched stories.

Not bad, if you consider that the alternative at the time was that of reading through html-based documentation, suitable maybe for collecting information, certainly not for shaping new behaviors.

But still too basic. In real life, we do not interact in such a simple way. Each decision we make and every emotion we express are the results of multiple factors merging, making the possible nuances of our behaviors almost unlimited.

Observe the way we interact in real life: each decision we make and every emotion we express are the results of multiple factors merging, making the possible nuances of our behaviors almost unlimited.

The problem is, even nowadays, the idea of simulating conversations through branched design is so common that each time we present SkillGym to anyone, the most predictable reaction being asked, “What type of branching did you design here?”

So, the real question is: why you should start considering that simulations can evolve into interactive conversational training, to the point where the experience becomes truly authentic?

The Need for Authentic Interaction

Short answer: because branching is not the answer to immersive learning.

We never pondered branching, not even for a second, while designing the SkillGym experience. Branching is too basic, it’s too black-or-white, it’s too much about understanding basic concepts rather that experiencing in a natural way the complexity of reality where internal perceptions and external circumstances continually influence the content and the intentions of the conversational interaction.

Let’s look at some examples to frame what I mean, considering three situations that may happen while you are playing a conversational simulation:

• You are discussing a topic with a fellow colleague. Suddenly you say the wrong thing. It happens all the time. How do you recover? Which strategy do you use?
  But, most of all, how will your colleague react after your next interaction? A branched simulation would much probably offer you the possibility to go back on track, proposing a better option for your next phrase.
  And that’s OK. However, how does it manage the fact that your fellow colleague may still be not happy with your previous sentence? How does branching deal with the flow of emotions that each of us carries along the conversation and that affect the ongoing dynamics?

• During the conversation, you hesitate to answer. You are trying to choose your best option and time flies, so your answer comes a bit late. Does it affect the quality of the reaction of the other person? Does the other person slightly change the overall mood while waiting? In real life, almost always yes. In branched simulation, no.

• Again, your fellow colleague decides to mark the spoken sentence with a subtle expression of his face. Almost nothing, but meaningful. Will your next sentence be interpreted with influence from this feeling? In real life, of course yes.
  In a branched simulation? Most likely, the entire simulation would be designed without those nuances, to avoid having to deal with them when they are expressed instead of when they are not.

• You play the simulation again. It’s training, after all. You are supposed to practice more and more. Do you expect that things develop exactly in the same way?
  I mean: at a certain point you decide to say the same thing you said last time. Even if the circumstances are slightly different. What would happen in a branched simulation?

How can you possibly evolve interactive conversational training to the point where the user experience becomes truly authentic?

 

These examples show how limiting a branched simulation can be, to express all the complexities that a real-life conversation brings to the table. Life is not branched at all. Even if every day we try to reduce it to a mere sequence of left-or-right turns, hoping to make it easier to find the reasons behind people’s behaviors.

These examples are only scratching the surface of the complexity behind a true and authentic representation of human reactions and feeling that get expressed during a conversation.

The picture I chose to open this article is a good representation of our feelings here at SkillGym: nurture new ideas beyond those branched “trees” and come up with something unique that can help users experience a completely new approach to training simulations, facing at least three challenges:

1. The flow of the conversation influences the character
2. The profile of the characters determines their own reactions
3. The user’s approach influences the interaction

1. The flow of the conversation influences the character

The first challenge for developing authentic Digital Role Plays is that of considering how the dynamics of the conversation -happening even before it starts- can influence the emotions and thus the reactions of the character.

In fact, each step is linked to the previous ones and influences those that follow.

In other words, the instant reaction of the character, in terms of verbal, para-verbal and nonverbal communication is continually influenced, whatever you are going to say, by several factors, including:

• Whatever happened to him/her before your conversation started, especially at the very initial steps of the conversation
• What happened so far: how you handled things and how he/she reacted
• What the character expects to happen next based on the ideas from you and of the ongoing conversation quality that is slowly developing inside his/her mind

The first challenge in developing authentic digital role plays is that of considering the continuous flow of emotions that happens during a conversation.

So, for example, you may expect that a conversation that starts is a bad way -maybe due to external factors outside of your control- will be more difficult to manage than one that started with a happy fellow colleague or report.

At the same time, the more you dig into the conversation, the more any reaction of the other person will be somehow influenced by the growing perception built around you.

2. The profile of the characters determines their own reactions

According to the specific type of character -and here at SkillGym we have developed a full set of types, in accordance with the most well-known psychometrics models- other factors influence the way the conversation goes.

Think about:

• The way this character processes information, the way he/she thinks
• The way he/she shows/hides emotions and the way their inner world is expressed when your approach changes
• How inbound and outbound emotional peaks are managed along the conversation, whether they are single peaks or continuing interferences

Each of us is different, and even within ourselves we are a blend of emotions and reactions that can be described according to models, but that eventually must be displayed in real time along the simulation. And this requires considering several variables, all intersecting with one another in real time.

3. The user’s approach influences the interaction

Finally, the user is an active part in the conversation, influencing the ongoing outcome of the meeting through the application or misapplication of:

• A style of communication
• A coherent set of behaviors along the path
• The recognition of any weak signals coming from the character

For example, one trainee could systematically apply a seemingly winning leadership style that is not appropriate to the circumstances. Much often the style has to change according to the development of the context, and recognizing it on-time can make the difference in going north or south.

Also, the attention to weak signals as the elapsed time, the nonverbal nuances of the character in the emotional peaks and other elements that are potentially under the control of the trainees can have an influence on the outcome of each single reaction of the character.

Enter AI

Managing all of the above variables in real time, within a limited canvas of conversational materials -defined as the balance between the user interaction and the character reaction domains’ variables- requires a good deal of technology.

This is where our SkillGym algorithms become a key ingredient of our recipe for authentic and immersive training experience.

The scheme below summarizes what happens during the ongoing conversation between the trainee and a SkillGym character.

1. SkillGym Digital Role Play is designed around a canvas of pre-recorded (character’s) video and (user’s) sentences
2. These assets are the result of the combination between the variables that define the character’s domain (needs, profile, prequel) and those belonging to the user interaction space (meaningful topics, styles and behaviors)
3. Based on the PREQUEL of the character and according to the information available in the overall user’s history, SkillGym Algorithms (SA) decide how to start-up the conversation
4. Each single interaction is tracked and stored in real-time and sent to the SA
5. At each step of the conversation, the SA decides about the options for interaction available to the user and the relevant reaction of the character–topic, intention and nonverbal

The twelve SAs work together to keep into account all the variables that we have seen above:

A. The conversational factors:

1. What happened to the character before the conversation started (“prologue”)
2. What happened during the conversation so far
3. What is happening now
4. The character expectations on the conversation’s outcome

B. The personality factors of the character:

1. The way he/she thinks
2. The way he/she behaves
3. The continuous flow of in/out emotions

C. The interaction approaches available to the user:

1. The style of communication
2. The underlying behaviors

D. The quality of the interaction (user and circumstances):

1. The attention to the character’s weak signal
2. The timing of interaction
3. Unexpected external factors influencing the context

Managing the Flow of Emotions

Clearly the challenge is that of making the conversation authentic, thus immersive.

SkillGym Algorithms are designed exactly for this purpose and the level of authenticity we reach in representing the character’s flow of emotions allows the user to literally collect a series of “Deja-vu moments” that contribute to the unconscious storing of new experiences.

I have discussed earlier in this article (“8 Key Metrics to Ensure a Successful Practical Training on Critical Conversations”) the subject of Deja-vu, one of the key learning triggers in SkillGym. In short, a Deja-vu is the perception of a situation that you feel like you experienced before and are strangely connected to what is happening now in front of your eyes.

This is not easy to achieve, but very powerful, since it is the equivalent of real-life stored experience that excites the brain much faster and more persistently than any knowledge-based piece of information.

Deja-vu, to pop-up, requires the perception of natural and coherent behaviors as perceived from the way the character acts and communicates, especially through nonverbal signals.

The twelve SkillGym Algorithms are made to measure and deliver this immersive and authentic experience, tuning the entire flow of the conversation in real time based on the multiple triggers we discussed above.

The impact on the user is very effective:

• You have the feeling of dealing with an “alive” character, just as if the person was there, real-time, in front of you
• You have the feeling that time is a key factor during the conversation
• You have the feeling you are really practicing your confidence, self-awareness and self-control by storing a large amount of ready-available new experience

We are constantly working on new ways to make the training more engaging, more realistic and more effective.

I believe that the limits of what we can do are still far off, however the implementation of this technology is a big step ahead already in the delivery of an increasingly authentic experience for our trainees.

I hope you enjoyed this tour of one of our favorite characteristics of SkillGym and hopefully I was able to make it very clear about the tremendous benefits of adopting AI.

You are most welcome to contact us to learn more about this subject and please feel free to book a 1-hour discovery call of SkillGym.

Written By

Andrea Laus

Andrea has 20 years of experience in the industry of digital learning. Since over 10 years now he designs and develop interactive simulations featuring video and AI to bring immersive and authentic digital experiences to leadership coaches worldwide.

Contact Andrea

There is plenty of evidence that conversations are the highways to deliver better cohesion, higher energy and better performance. Even in our small company, every day we see how influential conversations are across our team.

I am sure it is pretty much the same in your organization. Maybe on a larger scale, but with the same subtle dynamics. Facing the same challenges: helping people to master their skills and most of all to raise their confidence and self-awareness on Critical Conversations is not easy at all.

Mastery conversation is hard!

We have long reflected on the importance of mastery Critical Conversation (here is an interesting article “Building a Community of Leadership Abundance”) and on how practicing is by far the most efficient and long-term sustainable way to get and maintain results (here is another inspiring article “From Critical to Empowering Conversations: Let’s Change the World Using the C-FACTOR”).

We continue to discuss this subject (by the way, we would love to hear your thoughts) to inspire our next evolution of SkillGym.

We keep working hard on our methodology, since we believe that handling Critical Conversation to the point of mastery is just as hard.

Because emotions are involved, ancestral fears tend to overwhelm, and those who are not well trained tend to avoid them as the most comfortable option they have.

If you are a HR or L&D professional struggling with developing leadership in your organization and you agree with the above assessment, you may have already experienced (or maybe you are just starting to reflect on this) that practicing is the best way to expand your comfort zone as well as to measure and expand your limits.

Well, read on. There are at least ten good reasons for which it makes sense to integrate a training system that can help you deliver powerful and actionable practice with Critical Conversations.

Some good news

The following is a short list of the typical pains that most of our clients face every day when dealing with empowering leadership throughout their organization. Does it ring any bells?

For each challenge, I try to summarize what happens when you put SkillGym in the picture. Of course, each situation is different, so I don’t expect that all the following points apply to you, but I am sure you will find some food for thought.

1. Your Leaders are fed up with “pit-stop” learning. Those gatherings that happen one or two times per year, lasting two to three days and ending up in forgetting almost everything within the next two-three weeks. Many of them argue that they don’t even need leadership courses because “they know how to manage”.

• If you are scratching your head thinking about the next “one-shot” training fireworks to wake them up, please consider flipping the problem. They don’t really need another pit-stop. What they need is a consistent on-the-go support to let them reflect on the outcomes of their current level of mastery and to help them get and stay fit with conversational leadership (by the way, did you check out this amazing blog on this subject?)
• SkillGym is a gym where Leaders can challenge their current performance in Critical Conversation and, most of all, it’s a place where they can improve by practicing.
• Benefit to you: a great shift in traditional paradigms that will help you raise your Leaders’ interest. And a common ground will help you to better convey your other strategies, such as teambuilding, executive coaching as well as leadership classes and workshops. (Yes, we see that when people get feedback by practicing, like SkillGym provides, this turns on their self-awareness and their appetite for new and very focused knowledge!)

2. Your organization is asking you to boost your Leaders’ ability to engage their teams and pull out their best. But your last (and very traditional) empowering course didn’t seem to bring long-term results in the way they manage (potentially) empowering conversations.

• Leadership development is more than an informative process. Much more! It is a transformative process (more in this interesting and provocative article by Jack Dunigan). That’s why traditional leadership training alone falls short. It’s time to support your Leaders with long-term, consistent solutions that turn potential into real action.
• SkillGym specifically works on two paramount metrics: confidence in taking Critical Conversations (“Oh yes, it’s easy for me, I have done it before!”) and self-awareness of one’s own real impact on others.
• Benefit to you: you will expand your Leaders’ comfort zone in less time and more efficiently, with laser targeted self-paced practice that can be easily supported and integrated by other training services on demand.

3. You have so many subjects to work on, and leadership development seems to have never-ending borders. And, of course, resources can’t keep up.

• Certainly, you are familiar with the 80/20 principle (that’s tried and true law) in which 20% of the causes are responsible of 80% of the effects. Conversational leadership isn’t an exception. There is a short list of types of conversations that make most of the difference.
• SkillGym Curriculum focuses on 16 types of Critical Conversations. We build stories on those types that look like what your Leaders normally face every day.
• Benefit to you: no more divided energy, no more reinventing the wheel. Total focus on what really makes a difference. Storytelling is also a very powerful hook on its own, but when people recognize their own daily challenges in your stories, it becomes addictive!

4. You struggle to keep trainees engaged. Especially with digital learning.

• Welcome to reality! We know all too well how hard it is to keep the momentum, that we dedicated one entire webinar to this challenge (with a very provocative title, by the way!).
• SkillGym leverages a great principle to keep engagement high: habits. We are so hard-wired to our habit of following our schedule calendar that we stick to any appointment we put on it. So, each character of each Digital Role Play in SkillGym pops-up from time to time with a request for a conversation, sending a doodle to your busy Leaders. 😉 And guess what? After scheduling the appointment, almost no one misses the meeting.
• Benefit for you: a much higher level of engagement, exploiting such a well-rooted habit of human beings.

5. You need to measure and, most of all, boost your Leaders’ learning agility. Especially the most senior Leaders. It’s not at all easy.

• Learning Agility is one of the most important factors affecting the speed of development of people’s potential. It is paramount to measure it and it’s one of the key elements to stress for reaching any overall improvements.
• SkillGym measures Learning Agility in three ways: Skill Flexibility, Learning Speed and Retention Degree. Each Digital Role Play inside SkillGym challenges those three factors at the same time.
• Benefit to you: not only do you get an authentic measure on the go, you also push your Leaders’ limits by challenging them to keep up with increasingly complex and adaptive situations.

6. You need to find a compromise between the aim of personalizing your training strategy to the real needs of each individual and the resources you have to scale your training programs.

• Adaptive learning is becoming very popular these days. But it doesn’t come without organizational challenges. How can you keep up with all those individual needs, avoiding the risk of overflowing your capacity to deliver efficient training?
• SkillGym leverages AI to deliver what we call the Digital Fitness program. A totally personalized way to schedule the right dose of training. We start with a questionnaire to assess the real self-perceived need and the acceptable pace and then we adjust the program on the way, learning from each person’s real commitment and response to our challenges.
• Benefit to you: effortless personalization of the training path/pace and fully adaptive learning schedule available for all.

7. You need to turn training progresses into metrics to be shown to trainees for encouraging them to follow-up and you need to engage your and their sponsors to demonstrate the ROI of your activity.

• Measuring soft skills improvement is very important. But it is not easy if you can’t rely on a smart system rooted in consistent behavioral metrics.
• SkillGym is designed on behavioral grades from the ground up. We build each Digital Role Play on a solid behavior map and we measure over 50 different metrics that can be aggregated in several ways to fit your competence map, whatever that may be.
• Benefit to you: not only will SkillGym fit your model, it turns your KPIs in measurable evidence from one single dashboard. SkillGym Butler will also automatically informing your stakeholders about the results of your training management efforts.

8. You need to match competency assessment with annual performance reviews.

• Competency-based performance review is of course very popular and on the rise. It’s not easy to deliver when the organization is growing.
• SkillGym includes an option to run recurrent assessments on conversational skills and to export the data to your performance review workflow.
• Benefit to you: add an important angle to your performance reviews, highlighting potential blind spots on one of the most critical competency areas of all.

9. You need to focus on long-term maintenance of the new skills that you helped your Leaders develop. You know that people tend to slip back into their old habits, but scaling a skill-maintenance program is no simple task.

• Humans work on and stick to habits, whatever they do. You know how hard it is to change old habits. And you know even better how easy it is for old habits to crop back up if you don’t maintain your recently gained new approaches.
• SkillGym is not just another “touch-and-go” learning tool. It is a real on-the-go gym, specifically designed to follow and escort trainees over time. Because we know that new habits require maintenance to turn them into engrained habits.
• Benefit to you: no more “pit-stop” learning activities that fizzle out after two days. You can now integrate a long-term maintenance strategy that will keep you in touch with your Leaders over the long haul, providing self-scheduled recurrent practice and consistent progressive metrics to check effectiveness.

10. Sometimes you need to solve very specific problems unique to your organization. Storytelling requires personalization to really trigger your Leaders’ engagement.

• Even if leadership challenges are almost the same in every organization, each ecosystem is still unique. And sometimes your internal clients ask for as much personalization as possible, demanding extra effort from you to sort out the perfect dedicated nuances from established and well-running training programs.
• SkillGym provides a growing catalogue of the most recurrent leadership Critical Conversations with a 20/80 approach that is designed to challenge Leaders on conversations that really make the bigger difference. At the same time, however, we listen to each of our clients and quite often we develop custom-made stories if their needs become very specific.
• Benefit to you: from day one, you can start providing one of the most common challenges by using our ready-made stories. You can rely on a great team of storytellers and video makers to work with you to develop your next personalized scenario.

I hope I was able to inspire you with this list. Based on our experiences, more and more HR and L&D professionals are increasingly facing one or more of these challenges.

What do you think? I would welcome the opportunity to continue this conversation with you directly, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you want to dig deeper.

In closing, you may want to reflect on the characteristics to look for when choosing your next Digital Role Play system. We wrote this article (“Digital Role Plays, the Best Way to Develop Conversational Leadership”) to help familiarize you with this world.

Of course, we would be delighted to show you SkillGym’s solution in a 1-hour discovery call.

Thanks for reading!

Written By

Andrea Laus

Andrea has 20 years of experience in the industry of digital learning. Since over 10 years now he designs and develop interactive simulations featuring video and AI to bring immersive and authentic digital experiences to leadership coaches worldwide.

Contact Andrea