How do you prepare for a difficult conversation? Practice in the mirror? Write out notes?
Novant Health has deployed a new way to approach difficult conversations in the workplace – virtual reality.
In partnership with the Novant Health Innovation Lab and award-winning virtual reality provider Moth+Flame of Brooklyn, New York, the Winston-Salem health system has deployed new tools for leadership development and training.
Using VR headsets, Novant leaders and employees will participate in an immersive, voice-activated VR experience designed to help leaders approach sensitive issues.
“Health care is extremely personal and can sometimes require difficult conversations,” said Dr. Chere Gregory, senior vice president and chief health equity officer at Novant Health. “I’m proud to be part of an organization that is committed to investing in forward-thinking training and development, giving our team members the confidence and ability to have these needed conversations with fellow team members and/or their patients."
The first clinical and nonclinical leaders and team members recently participated in the health system’s first VR-based leadership development training that uses Moth+Flame’s Promise platform. Over the course of the next several weeks, more than 100 leaders across Novant will participate in the VR training.
Moth+Flame specializes in learning products for technical and cognitive skills in workforce development. Powered by artificial intelligence and natural language processing, the company combines art and engineering to provide high quality content, enterprise-grade scalability and military-grade security.
Its work has been recognized by SXSW, Sundance, Tribeca Film Festival, Future of Storytelling, Clio, Cannes Lions, AICP NEXT, Mobile World Congress and the Television Academy. Moth+Flame’s work has also been permanently archived in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Using VR to practice conversations
With the goal of garnering inclusion and advancing communication in the workplace, users will apply empathetic listening techniques in a potentially polarizing discussion to understand and navigate the barriers and solutions.
Unlike typical VR experiences, Moth+Flame uses real people instead of virtual avatars and immerses users in a lifelike environment, providing a more realistic and meaningful experience for end users.
The VR learning method results in a better experience than two-dimensional instructional designs through a learn-by-doing model, as Moth+Flame uses natural language processing that requires users to speak to interact.
“Virtual reality is transforming corporate training by reducing training time and improving training results. We have seen that people leaders are more confident in the material they learned than traditional learning formats,” said Kevin Cornish, founder and CEO of Moth+Flame. “By training in a simulated lifelike environment, our product offers the best format for high-impact training. The data we measured with Novant Health shows a continued trend that virtual reality is proving to be one of the most effective tools for professional development.”
The leadership training was inspired by the book “Talking Taboo: Making the Most of Polarizing Discussions at Work,” by Alex Alonso, the chief knowledge officer at the Society for Human Resource Management.
The future of VR at Novant Health
“At Novant Health, we continually look for solutions that combine our focus on purposeful innovation and human-centered care,” said Carmen Canales, senior vice president and chief people and belonging officer.
“By partnering with Moth+Flame, we can provide our teams an effective and engaging professional development opportunity, give immediate feedback and allow them to succeed in their careers as well as their personal lives.”
Over the next six months, Novant plans to deploy dozens more VR devices across the system for team member well-being, pain management, patient education and pre-operation planning in partnership with the Innovation Lab.
The Novant Health Innovation Lab, opened earlier this year, explores and accelerates technical integrations and strategic enterprise innovation to resolve employee challenges, improve patient outcomes, increase return on investment and foster community engagement.
