Marking and coaching the practice conversation

Practice is the part most programmes are missing, and adding it is not quite enough on its own. A learner who has a difficult conversation with an AI character and then hears nothing more about it has had an interesting twenty minutes. What turns it into a change in behaviour is what happens next.

Four steps, and only the first one is the practice

The learner works through the scenario and comes out with a transcript of everything that was said. That transcript is then assessed against your own criteria, by a person who knows what good looks like in your organisation, and the assessment is already sitting in the sequence waiting for it. The learner reads the feedback alongside their own words, notices where the conversation turned, and writes down what they would do differently. Their manager or coach then has the same material to work from, which makes the follow-up conversation specific rather than general.

Why a person does the marking

An automated score would be quicker and would tell you less. Whether someone handled a grievance well depends on judgement about tone, timing and what was left unsaid, and that judgement belongs to someone who understands the job. Building the assessment into the sequence means the marking happens as part of the run rather than as a separate exercise somebody has to organise. It also means the practice produces evidence a manager can act on, which is more than a completion record has ever offered them.