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 13, individuals will show that they can think about bias when looking to understand different perspectives.
In the previous two steps, the focus has been on listening critically by comparing perspectives and then thinking about what might underpin individuals having those different views. This step builds on this by investigating whether a perspective is biased.
Building blocks
The building blocks of this step are learning:
- What we mean by bias
- Where bias comes from
- Why bias matters: Cognitive biases and Prejudices
- How to identify bias when listening
- How to recognise our own biases
Reflection questions
- What is bias?
- Why does bias matter?
- How can we spot bias?
- Do you have any examples of bias you have seen?
What you need to know
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What bias means
Bias is when someone has a disproportionate or prejudged preference towards or against someone or something. Essentially, they have already made up their mind of what they think based on some details of the situation rather than the entire situation.
There are many different types of bias. The two we explore here are cognitive biases and prejudices.
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Where bias comes from: cognitive biases
There are many different types of bias, many of which come from the limitations or short-cuts of the human brain. These are called cognitive biases, and examples include:
- Anchoring bias: Where we put too much focus on the first piece of information we learn, and this becomes the starting point for any further discussion.
- Attribution bias: Where we try to explain people’s behaviour with only limited information, and so we assume why they did particular things – a risk that we highlighted in the previous Step.
- Confirmation bias: Where we unconsciously look for information that confirms our view of the world. We disregard information that goes against that view – generally without even realising it.
- Framing bias: Where we try to fit complex events into a straightforward narrative to help explain the world. This often means that we lose essential insight because we are trying to simplify everything.
- Halo effect: Where we have a good impression of someone, and so we see all the good that they do, and unconsciously disregard the bad.
- Horn effect: Where we have a poor impression of someone, and so we mainly spot the negative things they do, and downplay the good things.
- Loss Aversion: Where we fear loss more than we value gains, and so will do more to avoid a loss than we would to gain a similar amount. This can make individuals averse to changes that involve risk.
- Self-esteem effect: Where we reinforce our importance and goodness, by mentally taking credit for collective achievements, and blaming others for things that go wrong.
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Where bias comes from: prejudices
While some biases are the result of the limitations of the human brain, other prejudices are learnt or absorbed and can be more damaging.
At the core of these biases are judgements of an individual based on some characteristic, which can include:
- Age
- Appearance
- Disability
- Ethnicity
- Gender
- Income background
- Nationality
- Political views
- Religion
- Sexuality
- Social class
Acting along these biases is generally illegal in the UK. However, often these biases are not explicit and can be hard to prove. There is also evidence of bias which does not lead to outright discrimination but to ways, sometimes subtle, in which groups are disadvantaged relative to the prevailing norms.
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Why does bias matter?
Bias clearly matters when individuals are discriminated against, or not given the same opportunities to contribute and thrive. This is a clear injustice, and that is why such behaviour is illegal. It also squanders the talents of those involved and undermines their abilities and contribution.
Cognitive biases are also significant because it leads to the wrong decisions being made. They are shortcuts which save thinking time, and which are frequently helpful when navigating the world with the limited brainpower that we have. But when it comes to important decisions or perspectives, mistakes can be caused by these biases.
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How to identify bias
We can only identify bias when we are listening by taking a critical, questioning approach to what we are hearing. This is not an easy thing to master, and one of the reasons that this step is at the advanced end here.
The critical thing is to keep reflecting on several questions:
- What evidence is backing up the points that they are making?
- Is this evidence credible, or is it the result of a cognitive bias?
- What are they assuming, and are these assumptions biases?
- Do they show a willingness to adapt their perspective, or are they fixed in their view?
By being more aware of the cognitive biases and prejudices that exist, then we are more likely to be able to recognise them. The critical thing is to consciously think about trying to understand them.
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Why this skill step matters in education
In education, we are often presented with different perspectives on topical issues. This might be during debates, in extra-curricular clubs or societies or within specific subjects such as Humanities. As we move through school, college or university, we build up our knowledge and understanding of the world through listening to and analysing different perspectives. Through a greater awareness of different types of cognitive bias and prejudice and being able to identify them, we are more likely to recognise when they are being used and ensure that they do not influence our opinions or result in us forming unfounded arguments.
Why this skill step matters in the workplace
In the workplace, we listen to many different people share their perspectives on a variety of issues. These might relate to a company’s values, policies or strategic direction. When others share their viewpoints, being able to identify potential cognitive biases and prejudices is important when making decisions or supporting suggestions and proposals. It is essential that you can recognise bias in different perspectives to ensure that you support ideas that are representative of the company and beneficial to your customers or clients.
It is also an important tool when it comes to recruitment. When sorting through applications, conducting interviews and screening potential new hires, potential biases can influence which candidates are best supported. By understanding and recognising when there might be potential bias in an individual’s perspective, you can make informed and objective decisions on who will be best for a particular role.
Why this skill step matters in wider life
When making important decisions in our wider lives, it is crucial that we give ourselves time to think critically about matters. Cognitive bias and prejudices can lead to the wrong decisions being made as they provide shortcuts that prevent us from considering what is objectively best. When forming opinions, considering who to vote for or deciding where to live, it’s important that we are able to identify if people who are sharing their perspectives with us are influenced by biases. If we are able to think critically, we can identify the information that can help us and filter out unfair biases.
How to practise this skill step
To best practise this step of Listening, 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!
- Research types of cognitive bias to build your understanding of them. For example, anchoring bias, confirmation bias or the horn effect. What do these biases mean? What impact might they have on others? How can we avoid them?
- Research types of prejudices to build your understanding of them. For example, ageism, disability bias, gender bias or socio-economic bias. What do these biases mean? What impact might they have on others? How can we avoid them?
- Find some footage where a speaker might demonstrate bias, for example, a political speech. Listen to what is said and note down if you hear any bias and what type it might be. Repeat this a few times to build up your understanding of when bias is used.
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Teaching it
To teach this step:
- The teacher should introduce the concept of bias and ask learners to think about what they think it means and why it matters.
- The teacher can introduce the range of cognitive biases, asking first if learners can give any examples. For each type of bias, learners can discuss a case or two of what that bias might look like, or where they have felt that particular cognitive bias themselves and what the result was.
- The teacher can then introduce the second type of bias – prejudices. It’s important to emphasise that prejudices are not always overt or even conscious and that unconscious bias can also affect how people behave towards each other, or the opinions that they hold.
- Learners could view footage or review an event which demonstrates bias and ask them to identify where there is evidence of bias. For example, a political speech often provides quite a lot of fodder for exploration – whether looking at framing effects, halo or horn effects, or the self-esteem effect.
Reinforcing it
This is a good step to reinforce in lots of different parts of advanced studies. For instance, in reviewing topics in history or literature to identify where the writer had a biased perspective on events.
It is also helpful to encourage learners to think about what they are reading or listening to more generally, and to spot examples of different types of bias.
Assessing it
This step can be effectively assessed in a couple of ways:
- Firstly, checking that learners understand what bias is and can identify most examples of cognitive bias and prejudice.
- Secondly, seeing if learners can identify where bias might exist while they are listening critically. This can be captured in reflective conversation afterwards, or a written response.
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Build it at work:
This step is particularly relevant for individuals who have to consider different perspective to reach decisions, particularly where they might be controversial.
To build this step in the work environment, managers could:
- Discuss with the individual the concept of bias and ask the individual to think about what means and why it matters.
- Model bias in conversation to help show how its unhelpful effects. Here a manager might simulate a scenario where they demonstrate an example of exaggerated bias that is easy for an individual to spot. For example, they might set up a conversation where they attribute poor sales to ‘lazy’ staff. They might then ask individuals to spot the bias and describe why it is unhelpful.
- Task an individual to explain to how their job performance might improve if they developed a greater awareness of their own biases.
- Reflect with the individual about why it can be hard to spot our own biases.
Practising it:
There are plenty of opportunities for building this skill in the workplace:
- Working with colleagues: When listening to others in the team, with a focus on trying to reconcile opposing perspectives in order to choose the best course of action.
- Working with customers or clients: When communicating with customers or clients to manage expectations, give or take feedback and process their requests.
Reviewing it:
For those already employed, this step is best assessed through questioning. For instance:
- After discussing a topic where they disagree with another person, an individual might be asked to describe why they think a colleague has a different perspective or view on an issue.
Spotting it in recruitment:
During the recruitment process, this step could be assessed by:
- Questioning the individual during an interview to check they can identify most examples of cognitive bias and prejudice.
- Listening carefully to their answers to check for elements of bias.
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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
