A New tool for team building

A company's success depends on its people.
A strong, cohesive team can accomplish enormous things — but building such a team is fraught with challenge. While you can upgrade hard skills with relative ease, getting both a firm grasp of and developing existing soft skills?

• When people enter a training scenario and know they're being observed, whether personality tests or traditional team-building exercises, they'll naturally act differently.
• Some people are innately coachable — but it can take a lot of time to figure out what motivates and helps others grow (or if, ultimately, they're not the right fit).
• In a world where remote work is becoming more the norm, you have less time than ever to work with people in-person.

Coaching soft skills and removing the friction in teams is something many companies just aren't good at — and it holds them back.

So how do you evaluate and train soft skills effectively?

46%

of hires are considered failed by the 18 month mark

89%

of the cited reasons? Soft skills.

Impression Management

"the psychological term for the mental effort we put towards trying to impress by filtering, adjusting and exaggerating the things we say and do"

The Soft Skills Problem

The biggest hurdle when training soft skills is impression management. When people feel like they're being evaluated, they'll act different to their day-to-day — but you're trying to produce results that improve that day-to-day behavior. You need to see it.

• Relating anecdotes can sound good, but they might not be representative of what actually happened?
• Personality tests might appear to bring some rigor to the process, but you rely on self-reported answers to transparent questions.
• Many people have the potential to reflect and improve, but they might need help themselves in seeing those gaps

AlignVR's business coaching Revolution

This is where our advanced virtual reality team building and coaching solution comes in.

​We've developed a series of virtual reality challenges, tasks, and tests that suppress the conscious and subconscious tendency for candidates to engage in impression management — allowing business coaches and managers a unique, unfiltered peek inside candidates' actual personalities during a structured experience.

Observation

• Observe how employees collaborate
• See how they interact in real-time, unfiltered
• Confirm key behaviors without impression management

Insight

• Identify where soft skill gaps lie
• Compare how different employees work together to solve problems
• Peek through to their authentic personality

Reflection

• Encourage employees to address true strengths and weaknesses
• Discuss how they can improve as a team
• Having actually had fun, they're more receptive!

Reinventing team building and business coaching

With the AlignVR business coaching tool, groups of four candidates put on a VR headset. While coaches and managers observe, they walk around a virtual environment and interact with objects using two handheld controllers.

The scenarios are unlike anything they will be familiar with — which along with the technology, creates an immersive experience that encourages them to focus on the tasks they see.

​Cut off from the traditional team building exercise environment, this cognitive load suppresses that layer of impression management and their true soft skills emerge.

And it's not just coaching...

This technology isn't only great for coaching your existing staff. Use it during the hiring process to attain incredible insight about candidates to identify more amazing high performers!

Who are your people?

This is just a sample of the kinds of personalities you can watch for during an AlignVR session:

"Communicator"

Watch how people talk through the problem with others and share information. Did they talk about what they were doing? Did they keep secrets? Did they speak often?

"Team player"

Observe how employees contributed to the solution. Did they collaborate or get in the way? Were others comfortable working with them?

"Leader"

Spot leadership potential. See how people take initiative, organize, and work to include and motivate others on their team.

"Creative problem solver"

Identify effective problem solving. Did they successfully work with the rules of the scenario? Were they curious about the environment?

Detailed Participant Reporting

On top of observing and taking notes, you'll receive a detailed data report produced by the software containing digital fingerprints of the participant and their VR experience and actions. Together, this data will inform your follow-up and help identify areas for growth, reflection, and improvement — plus, of course, praise!

Debrief and produce growth

Follow up on your observations in a post-session discussion. You've seen their soft skills and behavior in action — now lead them in genuine reflection and growth

Who were the natural leaders? The competitors? Who butted heads? Who took direction well? Who contributed — and who didn't?

The first time you run an AlignVR team building session, you'll be surprised by the amazing wealth of information. You'll see behaviors that might otherwise take months to identify right there in front of you.

Whether you're an independent coach who will only see these people for a short amount of time, or an in-house manager looking for a way to break your team out of their habits, these sessions get right to the heart of what makes the team work — and what holds it back.

Build better teams.

With AlignVR, your business coaching and team building potential gets in step with the latest technology — and finally delivers a clear picture of the soft skills you're looking to identify and work on.

You create more incredible, high-performing team members — and identify potential problems before they become an issue. You've left the long-broken unreliable tests and techniques of the past behind and taken a bold step into a better future.

The best part? Participants overwhelmingly report that the process was fun, positive, and memorable. They love it!

Contact us today. Let's talk about how we can get you set up with the latest in team building innovation.