Training programs / Difficult conversations

Difficult conversations: practise the conversation you keep putting off

Feedback, a complaint, a performance concern, bad news. Rehearse it with someone who answers back, before it is real.

The moment

You know what to say until they answer

A report who keeps missing deadlines. A family who wants to know what went wrong. A colleague whose comment in the meeting landed badly. The opening line is ready. The conversation turns on the reply that was not in the plan.

A team member waits for a review conversation. A first person VR training scenario for workplace and enterprise, seen through the headset. — A team member waits for a review.

A consultant wearing a headset speaks with a family member in a hospital corridor. — A consultant speaks with a family member.

A team leader gives a colleague feedback. A VR training scenario for cross-sector. — A team leader gives a colleague feedback.

Why it goes wrong

Scripts break at the first surprise

Most preparation is a script. Real conversations bring an explanation the manager had not heard, a flash of anger or a long silence.

An employee wearing a headset stands facing a simulated senior stakeholder seated at a boardroom table, leaning back. — An employee faces a senior stakeholder.

Practise the decision, not the words

Guidance from the Fair Work Ombudsman and Acas describes the same shape: prepare, explain, listen, agree the next step. A good rehearsal gives the other person something new to say, and rewards asking, summarising and agreeing an action.

Every way to practise it

Headset, browser, twin or a facilitated room

Pick the format for the conversation and for the people who need it.

A man stands in a lift lobby facing the closed doors, a hand raised mid-request, another person at the edge of the frame. — A man in a lift lobby, mid-request.

Ready-made VR titles

Lift VR gives a leader seconds to answer a sensitive request in their own words. Everyday Inclusion moves people into the manager’s chair to decide what to say after a moment of bias.

A manager wearing a headset sits facing a simulated team member across a small table, rehearsing a performance feedback conversation. — A manager rehearses across a small table.

Custom scenarios from your own cases

A custom roleplay is written from the conversations your managers or clinicians find hardest, reviewed by HR or a clinical lead, and delivered in VR or on a screen. Rapid custom builds put a first version in front of users quickly.

A manager on screen, mid-sentence.

AI roleplay in a browser

With AI roleplay practice, the other person is an AI character on a laptop or phone. A manager reads the brief, talks it through, gets feedback against set criteria and runs it again.

A professional faces her own digital twin. An AI roleplay scenario for digital twins. — A professional faces her own digital twin.

A digital twin for the questions around it

Didymo, PTR’s digital twin product, answers from an organisation’s approved material and hands over to a person when judgement is needed. Staff can check the process before the conversation and after it.

A facilitator and a colleague rehearse a feedback conversation. — A facilitator and colleague rehearse feedback.

A facilitated session and debrief

The debrief asks what the manager intended, what the other person understood and where the conversation turned, then picks a response to practise again.

The evidence

Peer-reviewed studies of rehearsed conversations

Studies of VR diversity and inclusion training, with the conversation each tested.

A performance and feedback scenario in the Google DEI training, shaped by bias and stereotyping between a manager and a report. — A feedback scenario from the Google training.

Peer reviewed: Google, ACM CHI 2024

The training was built with Equal Reality, a subsidiary of People Tech Revolution, and included a manager’s performance feedback shaped by bias. In the published paper, the 7 trainees who returned the optional survey gave 82% average agreement that it was better than Google’s standard DEI training, and 94% average satisfaction.

Download the Google research paper PDF

A clinician wearing a headset stands at a hospital bedside facing a simulated patient propped up on pillows, practising the bedside conversation in a ward that looks like the ward. — A clinician at a hospital bedside.

Peer reviewed: Mayo Clinic, a controlled trial

A DEI program People Tech Revolution built for Mayo Clinic nurse leaders was tested against a control group. Of 1,149 eligible leaders, those who trained gained in empathic feeling (p = .002). Read the Mayo Clinic papers.

How it runs

Run it the way your team already learns.

Workplace exchanges inside the VR Library.

Run it yourself Your facilitator runs PTR VR Library titles on standalone headsets.

Practice on a monitor, a laptop or a phone. An AI roleplay scenario for AI roleplay and practice.

In a browser Staff rehearse with an AI partner on a laptop, no headset.

A video call grid of people in their own rooms: a study, a kitchen, an office, a lounge, a home desk and a greenhouse.

Facilitated over video A PTR facilitator runs the debrief by video, wherever teams sit.

Facilitators hand over an XR practice session in a workshop room.

With your trainer A trainer you already know runs it, licensed and prepared by PTR.

A senior leader wearing a headset listens to a younger colleague across a small office table. — A senior leader listens across a table.

Start with the conversation people avoid

Tell us which conversation your managers or clinicians keep putting off, and we will show you how teams rehearse it. Talk to us or book a time with our team.