Practise with drills and conversations

The Practise tab lets you try out emotional intelligence where mistakes don’t matter. Drills train you to recognise emotions. Practice conversations let you rehearse a hard conversation with a made-up colleague, played by Virgil, before you have a real one.

All the people and situations are made up. Your practice is private to you.

Recognise the emotion: drills

Each set of drills has up to five short workplace situations, written fresh for you each time. For each one, you name what the person is feeling and choose the best thing to say. A set takes about 4 minutes.

1. Open Emotional Intelligence›, then Practise.

2. In the Recognise the emotion box, select Start drills.

   VirgilTrack writes five new situations. You see “Writing five new situations…” for a moment.

3. Read the situation. Under What are they most likely feeling?, select one of the four feelings.

   The right answer is marked, with a sentence on why.

4. Under What’s the best thing to say?, select one of the three replies.

   Again, the best reply is marked, with why.

5. Select Next situation. After the fifth, select See my score.

You get one point for each right feeling and one for each best reply, so a set of five scores up to 10. Select Five more for a new set, or Done to go back. Drill scores are not saved.

Practice conversations

In a practice conversation, you play the manager. Virgil plays a colleague who has feelings you can’t see. How much they trust you, and how much they tell you, depends on how you respond. When you finish, you get a debrief that quotes your own words.

Start a conversation

1. Open Emotional Intelligence›, then Practise.

2. Under Practice conversations, select a scenario.

   Each card shows its level (Starter, Intermediate or Advanced), the situation, the person’s name and the skills it trains. A Best label shows your best score if you’ve done it before.

3. Read What you know and Your goal, beside the conversation.

4. Read what the person says to open the conversation, then type your reply in the box, as you would say it in person.

5. Press Enter or select Send. Their answer appears as they “speak”. Words in italics describe their tone or body language, such as looks away.

6. Keep going. When you’re ready, select End and get feedback.

A practice conversation with Tendai

You can send up to 12 replies. The counter under the box shows how many you’ve used, for example “3/12 replies”.

The trust bar

A bar headed with the person’s name, such as Tendai’s trust in you, shows how much they trust you, out of 100. It starts at 30.

Trust	Label	How the person behaves
Below 40	Guarded	Deflects and gives short answers.
40 to 69	Cautious	Shares part of the story.
70 and above	Opening up	Tells you what’s really going on.

Trust rises when you listen, reflect what they feel, ask open questions and avoid blame. It falls when you lecture, dismiss their feelings, rush to solutions or talk about yourself. The tip under the bar puts it simply: “listen first”.

Your debrief

When you select End and get feedback, Virgil writes your debrief. It shows:

• Your score, out of 100, and how much trust you ended with.
• What … was really going through: what the person felt and needed, which you couldn’t see during the conversation.
• By area: a score out of 5 for each of the five skills, with evidence from what you said.
• What went well: up to three things you did well.
• Try this instead: up to three things you said, each with a better way to say it.
• Practise this week, with your real team: one small thing to try for real.

Select Try again to repeat the same conversation, or Another scenario to choose another. Each finished conversation is saved. Your latest eight are listed under Your practice on the Me tab, with their date, score and final trust.

To leave without a debrief, select ← All scenarios. Nothing is saved.

The scenarios

Scenario	Level	Person	Skills
The quiet one who missed two deadlines	Starter	Tendai	Empathy, Managing emotions
Upset after a public critique	Starter	Caroline	Empathy, Managing emotions
“Is this system watching us?”	Starter	Mr Haingura	Empathy, Motivation
Passed over for the lead role	Intermediate	Brandon	Empathy, Relationships
The high performer running on empty	Intermediate	Naledi	Empathy, Motivation
“She takes credit for my work”	Intermediate	Simon	Relationships, Managing emotions
Feedback they won’t want to hear	Advanced	Lovemore	Relationships, Self-awareness
Back after a loss	Advanced	Martha	Empathy, Managing emotions

If you came from a skill on the Learn tab, only the scenarios for that skill are shown, under For and the skill’s name. Select Show all to see every scenario.

Wenk

Managers and the CEO get an email on Wednesday mornings that suggests a practice conversation they haven’t done yet. Select Start the conversation in the email to go straight to it. Once you’ve done them all, the email suggests the drills instead.

If something goes wrong

What you see	What to do
“Couldn’t load drills just now. Try again”	Select Try again.
“The practice partner didn’t respond. Try sending again.”	Your reply is back in the box. Send it again.
“The coach couldn’t write the debrief just now. Try again.”	Select End and get feedback again.
End and get feedback can’t be selected.	Send at least one reply first.
Send can’t be selected.	Type a reply first. After 12 replies, select End and get feedback.

Related

• Learn the skills
• Your team