Listening
Initially, the skill steps concentrate on being able to listen effectively to others - including remembering short instructions, understanding why others are communication and recording important information.
Individuals then focus on how they demonstrate that they are listening effectively, thinking about body language, open questioning and summarising and rephrasing.
Beyond that, the focus is on being aware of how they might be being influenced by a speaker, through tone and language.
The final steps are about critical listening - comparing perspectives, identifying biases, evaluating ideas and being objective.
Speaking
Initially, this skill focuses on being able to speak clearly - first with well known individuals and small groups and then with those who are not known.
The next stage is about being an effective speaker by making points logically, by thinking about what listeners already know and using appropriate language, tone and gesture.
Beyond that, individuals focus on speaking engagingly through use of facts and examples, visual aids, and their expression and gesture.
Beyond that stage, speakers will be adaptive to the response of their listeners and ready for different scenarios. The final steps focus on speaking influentially - using structure, examples, facts and vision to persuade listeners.
Problem Solving
The first steps focus on being able to follow instructions to complete tasks, seeking help and extra information if needed. The next stage focuses on being able to explore problems by creating and assessing different potential solutions. This includes more complex problems, without a simple technical solution.
Beyond this, the focus is on exploring complex solutions - thinking about causes and effects, generating options, and evaluating those options. This extends into analysis using logical reasoning and hypotheses.
Finally, individuals implement strategic plans to solve complex problems, assess their success, and draw out learning for the future.
Creativity
The first few steps focus on the individual's confidence in imagining different situations and sharing their ideas.
The focus is then on generating ideas - using a clear brief, making improvements to something that already exists and combining concepts.
Individuals then apply creativity in the context of their work and their wider life. They can build off this to develop ideas using tools like mind mapping, questioning, and considering different perspectives.
The most advanced steps focus on building effective innovation in group settings and by seeking out varied experiences and stimuli. Finally, individuals support others to innovate, by sharing tools, identifying the right tools for the situation and through coaching.
Staying Positive
The early steps focus on identifying emotions - particularly feeling positive or negative. Building off that is the ability to keep trying - and then staying calm, thinking about what went wrong, and trying to cheer up and encourage others.
The focus then turns to identifying new opportunities in difficult situations, sharing those, and adapting or creating plans accordingly. At more advanced steps, individuals identify and manage risks and gains in opportunities.
Finally, individuals support others to stay positive by managing their own response, helping others to see opportunities and creating plans to achieve them.
Aiming High
The focus is then about working with care and attention, taking pride in success and having a positive approach to new challenges. Building on this, individuals set goals for themselves, informed by an understanding of what is needed, and then be able to order and prioritise tasks, secure resources and involve others effectively.
At the higher steps, the focus is creating plans informed by an individual's skill set, with clear targets, and building on external views. At the most advanced level, individuals develop long-term strategies. These are informed by an assessment of internal and external factors, structured through regular milestones and feedback loops.
Leadership
At the earliest stages, the focus is on basic empathy - understanding their own feelings, being able to share them, and recognising the feelings of others. The focus is on managing - dividing up tasks, managing time and sharing resources, managing group discussions and dealing with disagreements.
Beyond that, individuals build their awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses, and those of their teams. This allows them to allocate tasks effectively. They then build techniques to mentor, coach and motivate others. At the highest steps, individuals will be able to reflect on their own leadership style and understand its effect on others.
Ultimately, they should be able to build on their strengths and mitigate their weaknesses, and adapt their leadership style to the situation.
Teamwork
The next steps focus on making a contribution to a team through group decision making recognising the value of others' ideas and encourage others to contribute too.Beyond that, individuals improve their teams through managing conflict and building relationships beyond the immediate team. At the top steps, individuals focus on how they influence their team through suggesting improvements and learning lessons from setbacks.
Ultimately, individuals support the team by evaluating others strengths and weaknesses and bringing in external expertise and relationships.
Skill Step
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Skill Step
To achieve Step 12, individuals will show that they actively seek external views in developing their plans, including constructive criticism.
In the previous steps, the focus has been on building plans based on an understanding of the goals, resources and skills available. This step develops this further by also looking at how to engage with external views and seek constructive criticism to improve these plans.
Building blocks
The building blocks of this step are learning:
- What is the value of external views
- What is constructive criticism
- How to ask for constructive criticism
- When are external views most valuable
Reflection questions
- Why is it important to include external views as we develop our plans?
- What is constructive criticism, and how can it be helpful?
- How can we ask for constructive criticism?
- At what point should we ask for external views?
- Have you had any experience of doing this, and what was the result?
What you need to know
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The value of external views
The best plans are informed by a wide range of external views. This is a common theme between many of the other skills, including Listening, Speaking and Creativity.
Engaging with a range of external views can help us to:
- Learn new information
- See a new perspective on a problem
- Challenge our preconceptions, or misconceptions
- Force us to articulate our ideas
- Generate new ideas
- Solve problems together
For this reason, all organisations that create effective plans consult widely with team members, clients, customers, and other stakeholders to ensure that their plans are informed and challenged as widely as possible.
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Constructive criticism
Constructive criticism is one part of gathering external views. It is about asking others to identify what might be wrong in your existing plans and to suggest ways of making improvements or addressing some of those shortcomings.
It is quite different to criticism because it is focused on making improvements more than just telling you what is wrong. Constructive criticism is normally defined by:
- A positive, helpful tone
- Identification of what is working well, as well as what can be improved
- Considered, reasoned opinions
- Explanation of points
- A willingness to discuss the critique more widely
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In different settings
In some cases, you will have an open, trusting relationship with someone where giving and receiving constructive criticism is a normal part of how you work together. This is invaluable for your development and that of your plans.
However, in other cases, you will need to be proactive in encouraging others to feel they can share what they really think. You should not believe that generally encouraging comments are necessarily a true reflection of what the other person is thinking – they might just be being polite.
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Asking for constructive criticism
To encourage others to give constructive criticism, you need to first be explicit about the fact that you welcome it. For example:
- “This thinking is at an early stage, and I would really value your input to make it better.”
- “This plan is just a starting point, so I’d love to hear your thoughts.”
You can then ask questions to encourage others to give constructive criticism:
- What do you like about the plan at the moment?
- What do you have concerns about?
- What do you think I should also think about?
- Do you think there are any mistaken assumptions I’ve made?
This questioning will help the other individual to feel like they have permission to be honest and open with you in their feedback – and this sort of feedback will definitely be the most helpful.
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When are external views most valuable?
External views can play an essential role at all different stages of putting together and implementing a plan. That includes when goals are being devised, analysis carried out, and action plans being written.
The crucial thing is to get external input early so that it can be built into your thinking rather than needing to change plans later on – or receiving feedback when it is too late to do anything with it.
If you can engage people early, then they can become your most engaged partners, because they will share a sense of ownership with you about the plan and the outcomes. That also means that they are much more likely to support you along the way to realise those plans.
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Why this skill step matters in education
In education, receiving feedback and constructive criticism from others is what helps us learn. Teachers, coaches and peers can share their valuable input on our work and help us see new perspectives. Sometimes we might create several drafts of work or complete something in stages; asking for feedback early on means that we have time to consider those views and make changes before we hand in the final version.
As well as receiving constructive criticism on our work, at school or college there are opportunities in person or in reports to receive feedback from teachers on our overall progress, not just in our studies. Sometimes it can be difficult to recognise this on our own or it might not be what you expected; however, these opportunities are an important way to celebrate what is going well and find out what areas can still be improved.
Why this skill step matters in the workplace
In all workplaces, plans and decisions are informed by the views of others (colleagues, clients, customers or the general public). Hearing different perspectives and having your ideas challenged improves your plans and ensures that a range of factors have been considered so that you can be confident in your final decision. Writers will have their drafts of their work read and checked by different people as they write, customers are asked to give feedback on versions of a new product being made, managers will share feedback with their staff to help them make progress. The key is to be open to feedback and constructive criticism, taking advantage of the opportunity to make positive changes.
Why this skill step matters in wider life
Seeking input from others helps us grow and learn. We may come across situations where we are unsure about something or stuck but as soon as we share this with someone else, and hear a different perspective, the solution to the problem becomes much clearer. If we try to create plans on our own, it’s easy to get stuck for ideas or limit our options.
You have probably given constructive criticism yourself before and might find that your friends tend to go to you for advice on certain things because your expertise is helpful. Think about the people around you who you trust to be honest, and who can offer a different perspective, and not just asking someone who you know will agree with you.
It is also important to remember the importance of timing; there is nothing worse than asking for feedback when it’s too late to do anything about it – like checking what your friend thinks of your outfit when you’ve already left your house.
How to practise this skill step
To best practise this step of Aiming High, apply what you have learnt to a real-life situation. Choose one or more of the activities below, remind yourself of the key points and strategies in the step, and have a go!
- Plan a meal for a friend or relative, ask for their thoughts as you are cooking to see if they would suggest any improvements.
- Take something you are working on, before you have finished it, and choose two or three others to give you feedback. Ask for constructive feedback: “What do you like about it at the moment? What are your concerns? Is there is anything I might have missed?”
- When playing sports or music, ask a peer or coach to observe you and provide some feedback on how you could improve.
- Before you make a decision about something you are unsure of, find someone who could share their thoughts with you. Explain what your concerns are and see what they suggest.
Build this step
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Teaching it
To teach this step:
- The teacher should start by asking learners to think about what they might get out of engaging with external views when they are developing their plans. This should give some of the ideas that were shared earlier, and potentially others too.
- Learners can be asked to define constructive criticism, and what makes it different to just criticism. The teacher can lead a discussion of why this sort of feedback can be helpful, but also why it is not always easy to come by.
- The teacher can introduce some of the approaches for asking for constructive criticism from others, modelling how they might ask. Learners can practice this in pairs, with an emphasis on giving permission for the other person to provide feedback.
- Finally, learners can reflect on the stages in the planning process when external feedback can be valuable, and how they might go about gaining it.
Reinforcing it
This step can be encouraged across learning, as it is a good habit for learners to seek out constructive criticism across many aspects of their work and personal development. This could be extended to reviewing one another’s work as peers and being able to give helpful, constructive feedback to one another.
Assessing it
This step is best assessed by observing whether learners can give and receive constructive criticism and actively seek external views when developing their ideas and plans.
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Build it at work:
This step is relevant to individuals who can help the team to succeed by making plans to achieve goals.
To build this step in the work environment, managers could:
- Discuss with the individual what they might get out of engaging with external views when they are developing their plans.
- Explain to an individual what makes constructive criticism different to just criticism. The manager can lead a discussion of why this sort of feedback can be helpful, but also why it is not always easy to come by.
- Show how to use constructive criticism to shape a plan, to provide an individual with a template they can follow. To achieve this, a manager could present two models of how feedback can be used to inform a plan: one where constructive criticism is sought out right at the start of a project and a second where constructive criticism is collected late in the process. By comparing the models, a manager can help the individual understand how best to use constructive criticism to shape a plan.
- Task the individual on an exercise which is about them asking for constructive criticism on a current piece of work.
- Reflect with the individual about the stages in the planning process when external feedback can be valuable, and how they might go about gaining it.
Practising it:
There are plenty of opportunities for building this skill in the workplace:
- Working with colleagues: During key stages of a planning process, such as when goals are being developed, with a focus on using external perspectives to inform the plan’s design and constructive criticism to improve it.
- Working with customers or clients: Whenever we receive feedback from customers or clients which might help inform our plans for the future.
Reviewing it:
For those already employed, this step is best assessed through discussion and subsequent observation. For instance:
- A manager could stage a reflective conversation with an individual, to share some constructive criticism on a project the individual is involved in. A manager might extend this conversation, asking questions to understand what an individual plans to do with this external view. Evidence of this skill step can be found in the individual using this external view and others they might collect, to inform the steps they take next.
- The manager can also observe the extent to which the individual seeks out external views and constructive criticism in their day-to-day work.
Spotting it in recruitment:
During the recruitment process, this step could be assessed for by:
- Questioning an individual during an interview. The interviewer might pose questions to check if an individual has previously sought constructive criticism and used it to inform their plans.
- Providing some constructive criticism on the spot, and see how the individual reacts to it – whether they welcome it, or become defensive.
Build this step
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We work with a wide range of organisations, who use the Skills Builder approach in lots of different settings – from youth clubs, to STEM organisations, to careers and employability providers.
We have a lot of materials available to support you to use the Skills Builder Universal Framework with the individuals you work with, including:
- Tools for self-reflection
- Materials to support you to teach the skills, if appropriate in your setting
- Reward systems like printable certificates
We also do a lot of work with organisations who join the Skills Builder Partnership to build the Universal Framework into their work and impact measurement systems. You can find out a lot more using the links below.
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At home, you can easily support your child to build their essential skills. The good news is that there
are lots of ways that you can have a big impact, including:
- Talking with your child about the essential skills, what they are and how they are useful in all
aspects of life, whether at school, home or in the workplace - Talking about how you use these skill steps in your own work or wider life
- Helping your child to identify where they already build their skills at school, at home or
through other activities and clubs - Praising your child when they show they are using the skills well, and helping them to feel a
sense of achievement - Encouraging them to recognise and talk confidently about their skill strengths with others, and
supporting them to develop their skills further
