BLOG: P2 tests Virtual Reality learning for leaders

All of us have experienced an enormous impact on our professional and personal lives in one way or another. But, as businesses start to edge closer to normality and leaders begin to think about developing a new culture, it's important they don't lose sight of the skills developed and honed during the pandemic because some tough (and useful) lessons were learned:

In the process of practicing courageous conversations in the role play, leaders were able to truly understand their intention versus their impact.

The term psychological safety was coined by Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson. She defines it as “a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. Establishing a climate of psychological safety allows space for people to speak up and share their ideas.”

The500 is a 9-month, cross-sector, socially-focused leadership development program that builds the leadership capability of senior business leaders while making a positive impact on society.  

Virtual reality leadership training is an immersive experience and in the case of multi-player VR training, leaders are immersed in a virtual world where they are expected to collaborate and successfully complete a series of tasks. An effective VR experience lasts 5 to 15 minutes and enables facilitators to test and observe a range of soft skills, including empathy, communication, collaboration, innovation, continuous improvement, agility, and much more.

Make sure your team knows they can count on you as their leader, to provide a level of safety and security to achieve great things. My one piece of advice for up-and-coming leaders is – always be yourself, you are your greatest asset – be confident in your own abilities, the rest will follow.

In this new, virtual world, an internal audit team needs to understand how to influence stakeholders, build strong and open internal cultures, and present clear and sufficient oversight over the risk agenda.

During P2’s webinar on the topic of “what will the leader of 2022 face” our expert panelists explored key leadership pressure points, looking back at 2021 and forward in time to 2022, to make sense of the craziness.

The holy grail of customer loyalty has vexed many an organization for many a year.  Knowing that keeping loyal customers costs the business less than it does to replace them with new customers can focus leadership energy.  Yet many spend too much time spent chasing the concept of satisfaction without actually thinking of customer experience.  In fact, a whole industry has sprung up around customer loyalty – what is it? what drives it? how can we achieve it? and how can we measure it? 

Our goal is to create for leaders the chance to reconnect with the concept of play, fall out of their own thinking, take risks, experiment, and with a soft place to land – learn fast. These play areas or playgrounds are created to be a safe place but they do include the concept of stretch + rest = growth.

What sets good leaders apart from great leaders isn’t rhetoric, but rather engagement. Engagement means genuinely listening, asking powerful questions to truly understand, working with the other individual, and having a powerful and meaningful conversation. This is a two-way process: it serves to enhance and not block; to grow and not limit; and finally to collaborate rather than just instruct. And it is tough to do.

Join us as we bring together a panel of Leadership Experts, including Author and Keynote Speaker Liane Davey, discussing the biggest challenges leaders will face in 2022.  This year has felt like being on a crazy train of change, will it be an even crazier train in 2022? Where should leaders focus? 

Just when you thought you were getting the hang of leading in the virtual world, now organizations are asking you to lead in a hybrid world. Whether that is three days in the office, two days at home, four days in the office, and one day at home, or even a much more flexible version where it is up to the individual. How the hell are we supposed to find the right way forward?

Colin Hunter is an Author, Mentor, Coach, and the Founder and CEO of PotentialSquared, an international business that specializes in Leadership Development, creating playgrounds of innovation and disrupting the way people are led. Relearning failure as a valuable outcome makes for an outstanding and successful leader. Building from your insecurities is essential to leadership. But, that’s easier said than done. What if you could build a workplace culture that was less like a classroom, and more like a playground: a place filled with opportunities to take risks and test boundaries, with soft ground on which to fall? A place where you and your team are free to make mistakes and get things wrong―a place where it’s okay to fail? Just think of the potential you can unlock when teams are free to innovate without fear of failure.

"What It's Really Like to Be an Entrepreneur" has been rebranded to "That Entrepreneur Show" https://www.VincentALanci.com/. Whether you are looking to start or scale your business, this is the show for you. You never know which motivational journey will inspire you most. This week, the show is joined by Colin Hunter. Author, Mentor, Entrepreneur, Coach and CEO at Potential Squared International, he does it all.

Leading through uncertainty requires great skill, flexibility, and empathy, and also presents an opportunity for leaders and their teams to shape the future. Giving your leaders the tools they need to create a clear vision, helps to keep people focused on what to prioritize amongst the myriad of activities, demands, and opportunities that emerge during challenging situations.

Listen in to know how Colin takes on innovation in the field of VR with Accenture and creats playgrounds for his various clients. You'll also get a sneak peek at how his daughters fell in love with staying in hotels. Clue: stuffed animals!

We all strive for success. But author, entrepreneur, and leadership coach Colin Hunter wants to encourage leaders to embrace failure instead. As the CEO and Lead Guide of PotentialSquared, Colin inspires leaders to disrupt the way they engage and develop their people, encouraging them to try new ways of thinking, systems, and habits.

Colin talks with Zach about why he thinks creating a playground for leaders to test, stretch and push themselves is healthy.

John Rennie and Colin talk about the power of controlled failure in leadership, Colin's first book 'Be More Wrong', and what makes PotentialSqaured unique.

Colin talks with Rohan Dredge on Facebook Live. A great conversation on leadership playgrounds.

Who better to speak with now as we head into the next phase of the ‘pandemic era’ than Colin Hunter, CEO of PotentialSquared, which specializes in using virtual reality technology to help leaders reveal and learn from their true behaviors and habits. 

Colin joins Michael Matias on the 20-minute leaders podcast.

Fear in Leadership - Colin Hunter on the Gritty Leaders Podcast.

Stephen Crawford talks to Colin about his new book (due to be published in September 2021) and his message of “be more wrong.” Tune in to learn how to help your screw-ups add to your success as a leader.

Check out our CEO Colin Hunter appearing on The Business and Leadership Podcast with Jared Graybeal.

It’s funny how this time of the year has a major impact on people. As I sit looking out the window as snowflakes fall, the morning after we sat in the garden wondering whether the sun cream was needed.  Spring has several phases that seem to give us hope, the daffodils come out, we have hope that the sun and warmth are coming too.

Beyond the obvious importance of being able to work in a physically safe environment, attention in recent years has been drawn to ‘Psychological Safety’, through the work of Amy Edmondson and Tim Clark. What do we mean by psychological safety?

You can use VR to hire, assess and develop leadership capability. Imagine an immersive, virtual and measurable simulation that challenges teams to meet their learning and development goals. Participants must communicate, plan, organize, collaborate, and solve problems within a VR environment.

As we progress through the simulation, you can really appreciate how Virtual Reality learning can practically assist with talent acquisition, succession planning, leadership development, and team engagement. Being able to see how individuals deal with high pressured environments is vital and normally difficult to test.

It’s funny how this time of the year has a major impact on people. As I sit looking out the window as snowflakes fall, the morning after we sat in the garden wondering whether the sun cream was needed.  Spring has several phases that seem to give us hope, the daffodils come out, we have hope that the sun and warmth are coming too.

This Leadership Development Program also gives in-depth analysis and 360’ insight into your leaders’ styles. Purpose, Identity, and Presence are the 3 drivers of leaders’ actions. They fuel leaders' ability to be a Host, an Energiser, a Disruptor, and a Catalyst. Your leaders will come away with tangible long-term plans of action. They will be encouraged to embed systems and habits that will keep them on an upwards trajectory. These programs can be fully tailored and aligned with your organization’s values and leadership frameworks.

The analogy of the leader taking the ship out of the harbour and deliberately seeking rougher seas, evokes a mix of fear and exhilaration in leaders and their teams.

The most amazing stories I hear in my journeys as a leadership consultant, are those of people who never thought they would ever be a leader, and now they are.