Blog
What we have learned since 2012 and across six million practice sessions, and what the research says about turning knowledge into behavior.
Latest articles
sales excellence
Accelerating Sales Expertise in MedTech: Insights from the Brussels Roundtable
What sales and training leaders from MedTech told us in Brussels about complexity, rejection and culture, and what the science of expertise says about training for all three.
10 Nov 2025 · 5 min read
neuroscience of learning
Skillgym: The Science Behind the Method
Expertise, Cognitive Task Analysis, Cognitive Flexibility Theory, Cognitive Transformation Theory and transfer-appropriate processing: the research the Skillgym method is built on, step by step.
6 Nov 2024 · 6 min read
neuroscience of learning
The Neuroscience Behind Skillgym Practice
Encoding and retrieval, automaticity, familiarity and self-awareness: how practicing critical conversations changes the way the brain performs them.
2 Feb 2022 · 5 min read
neuroscience of learning
Skillgym as Intrinsically Motivated Learning: A Neuroscientific Explanation
Why practicing critical conversations is engaging in itself: intrinsic motivation, the right level of challenge, and the brain circuits research links to both.
13 Jan 2020 · 4 min read
analytics
Making the Best of Skillgym Analytics
How to read the analytics of a Skillgym conversation: quality of the strategy, self-awareness, objectives, phases and competencies, and how they relate to each other.
22 Nov 2019 · 5 min read
leadership development
Managers Can't Be Coaches Without Practicing Conversations
Coaching is the most effective way for managers to lead, and it is made of conversations. Which skills, which conversations, and how much practice it takes.
14 Oct 2019 · 5 min read
conversational leadership
How Leadership Conversations Can Prevent the Failure of Your Digital Transformation
Digital transformations fail on people, not products. The five causes, why conversational leadership addresses each, and how to practice it before it is too late.
5 Sept 2019 · 5 min read
scenario design
The Backbone of Digital Role Plays: How a Simulation Is Designed
Behind every effective digital role play there is a design process: four pillars, a leadership style, observable behaviors and a plot. Here is how it works.
4 Jun 2019 · 5 min read
leadership development
Planning Leadership Training for Success: 12 Best Practices
Twelve practices observed in companies that deliver leadership training a new generation of leaders actually values, from teasing to flipping the strategy.
4 Jun 2019 · 5 min read
neuroscience of learning
Our Brain Doesn't Tell the Difference Between Simulation and Reality
Why simulation works for training: the brain learns by replicating what it does, and a realistic simulation is processed as if it were real.
8 May 2019 · 5 min read
scenario design
Making a Competency Model Truly Actionable in People Development
Domains, competencies, skills and observable behaviors: how to clarify a competency model and connect it to practice that can be measured against it.
23 Apr 2019 · 6 min read
digital role play
Digital Role Play Stripped Bare: What It Is and How It Works
What a digital role play actually is, what the word digital adds to a classic role play, and the seven components that make one work.
23 Apr 2019 · 6 min read
conversational leadership
A Curriculum for Conversational Leadership
Tips do not change habits. The seven building blocks of a structured curriculum for conversational leadership, from areas of empowerment to skills.
23 Apr 2019 · 5 min read
leadership development
Flipping the Leadership Development Strategy with Actionable and Scalable Programs
Why injecting digital role play into pit-stop programs wastes its potential, and what changes when continuous practice becomes the skeleton of the L&D strategy.
23 Apr 2019 · 5 min read
digital role play
The True Learning Scope Behind a Digital Role Play
Digital role plays fail when used to drill scripts in intensive bootcamps. They work when they build experience: scoring wide, not high, at a sustainable pace.
23 Apr 2019 · 6 min read
conversational leadership
What Is Conversational Leadership and How Does It Improve Team Performance
Leadership exists only in conversations. The four areas of conversational empowerment, why teams need them, and why they cannot be improvised.
23 Apr 2019 · 5 min read
scenario design
Training Conversational Leadership Across Cultures: How We Localize
Every culture expresses the same behaviors differently. The etic and emic approach to localizing a behavioral role play, and how it works today in 30+ languages.
18 Mar 2019 · 5 min read
sales excellence
How Practicing on Digital Role Play Improves Real Sales Performance: A Case Study
13,755 salespeople, 23,909 simulations, a control group: 90% more quotes and 84% more closed deals in the six months after practice entered a sales organization.
7 Mar 2019 · 4 min read
self awareness
Why Stimulate Self-Awareness by Using Both Sides of Your Brain
Self-awareness grows fastest when emotional feedback and objective metrics arrive together. How self-assessment, the character's account and analytics combine.
7 Mar 2019 · 4 min read
digital role play
How to Support People Development Programs with AI Role Play
What Skillgym is, how it differs from a course, how it fits into an L&D program and integrates with your systems. A practical overview for people development teams.
7 Mar 2019 · 4 min read
leadership development
Using Situational Leadership to Manage Different Types of Conversations
There is no one best way of leading, but there is a best style for each situation. Six styles, when they work, when they fail, and how to practice switching.
7 Mar 2019 · 4 min read
scenario design
Building Authentic Characters for Effective Digital Role Plays
The psychometric models behind Skillgym characters, and why a character with a personality, needs and a standpoint is what makes a role play worth playing.
5 Mar 2019 · 5 min read
scenario design
Why Use Interactive Storytelling in Training: The Benefits of Role Play
Adults learn from stories they recognize and from doing things themselves. How interactive storytelling, authentic characters and short sessions make practice stick.
5 Mar 2019 · 5 min read
neuroscience of learning
The Learning Theories Behind the Skillgym Method
Adult learning is different. Andragogy, experiential learning, simulation, flow and feedback: the theories that shape how a Skillgym session is designed.
4 Mar 2019 · 5 min read
leadership development
Make Skillgym the Backbone of an Effective L&D Strategy
How a practice platform integrates into an L&D strategy: modular features, program metrics mapped on your KPIs, and the many ways organizations use it.
4 Mar 2019 · 5 min read
practice and repetition
Digital Fitness: Adaptive Practice for Conversational Leadership
Why conversational skills need a fitness program rather than a course, and how an adaptive protocol tailors pace and content to each trainee's real habits.
28 Feb 2019 · 4 min read
leadership development
Six Factors in Designing a Well-Balanced Practice Program on Conversational Leadership
Program length, frequency, repetitions, choice of subjects, adaptive scheduling and human integration: what field evidence says about each.
28 Feb 2019 · 5 min read
self awareness
Self-Awareness: The Single Factor That Most Influences the Speed of Leadership Development
How Skillgym measures self-awareness in a conversation, why performance accelerates only after a threshold, and where most leaders start.
28 Feb 2019 · 4 min read
conversational leadership
Building a Community of Leadership Abundance
Leadership is recognized, not claimed, and it generates new leadership. How empowering conversations turn scarcity into abundance across an organization.
21 Feb 2019 · 5 min read
conversational leadership
From Critical to Empowering Conversations: The C-Factor
Why leaders avoid the conversations that matter most, what the best ones do differently, and the four ingredients that build the C-Factor.
20 Feb 2019 · 5 min read
digital role play
How AI Delivers an Authentic Training Experience in Skillgym
Why branching was never the answer, the three forces that shape a real conversation, and how governed AI reproduces them in a character who stays themselves.
20 Feb 2019 · 5 min read
practice and repetition
Three Case Studies and One Strategy to Keep People Engaged with Digital Learning
Why learning by doing alone does not sustain engagement, what benchmarking adds, and how leveraging the calendar habit turned the curve around in three companies.
19 Feb 2019 · 4 min read
leadership development
Ten Reasons to Consider Skillgym for Your Next Leadership Development Program
Ten challenges HR and L&D professionals face in leadership development, and what changes when practice on critical conversations enters the picture.
19 Feb 2019 · 4 min read
practice and repetition
Eight Ways Your Skills Improve by Practicing on Digital Role Plays
Eight learning triggers that act before, during and after a simulated conversation, and why their combination accelerates confidence and self-awareness.
18 Feb 2019 · 4 min read
digital role play
Digital Role Plays: The Best Way to Develop Conversational Leadership
Why role play should go digital, the five components every platform needs, and a six-point checklist for choosing one.
17 Feb 2019 · 5 min read
analytics
Eight Key Metrics for a Successful Practice Program on Critical Conversations
Four result metrics and four discipline metrics: the twenty percent of measures that explain eighty percent of what happens in a practice program.
16 Feb 2019 · 5 min read
Keep exploring the Practice Fastlane
If an article raised a question about your own program, the fastest answer is a conversation with us.