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.
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To achieve Step 3, individuals will need to be able to listen, and retain, recall and share what they have heard.
In Steps 1 and 2 individuals focused on their ability to listen to others and remember simple instructions, and to use questioning to check their understanding. This step builds off this by dealing with the recalling and retelling of longer pieces of information.
Building blocks
The building blocks of this step are learning:
- How to listen effectively and stay focused
- How to retain and process information
- How to recall and explain that information to someone else
Reflection questions
- How do you make sure you are listening?
- How do you help ensure that you stay focused?
- How do you make sure you remember a longer piece of speech, a series of instructions or a story?
- When do you find this easier or more difficult?
- When are you good at recalling information that you have heard?
- What are the most important things to share?
What you need to know
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Listen effectively and stay focused
In the previous steps, some approaches to ensuring focus were discussed, along with the importance of being in the right frame of mind.
One simple model that was introduced in Step 1 to do this is to:
- Stop anything that might be a distraction. That might include putting down stationery or tools, not writing or reading anything else, and ensuring that there are no distracting background noises.
- Focus on the speaker, by looking at them and being ready to receive the instructions. Your brain must be in a place of actively trying to remember what is being said. You cannot be thinking about other things.
- Repeat what you are hearing in your head several times so that you have been able to process them and check that you understand what they mean in your head.
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Retaining and processing information
Most people find it difficult to recall anything verbatim (that is, exactly in the same way that they were told it). Recalling what is being heard is not like trying to record in real-time what is being said.
Instead, people remember extended things they hear in one of several ways:
- They relate a new piece of knowledge to what they already know and fit it into an existing conceptual framework. For example, they might link something geographically, or place it in a historical context. Or they might link a concept in science to something that they have observed themselves.
- Alternatively, people turn the information into a sequence or story that they can follow – humans are good at using stories as a way of storing information.
- Finally, thinking about the implications and feelings about what is being heard can be a very effective way of processing information.
In any case, it often takes a little time to think and to process what has been heard before we can share that information on with someone else. Taking a bit of thinking time is a good idea.
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Recalling and sharing information
It is very difficult to share information that you have not had time to think about first.
When you share information, you are very unlikely to share it exactly as you heard it. The key thing is to focus on keeping the same key points – not to get all the words right.
If you have been able to process what you have heard, you might already have turned this into a story, or you might be able to link what you are saying to other concepts or experiences that will be familiar to the listeners.
The most important information to share will depend on the situation, and it is worth focussing on this key information.
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Why this skill step matters in education
In education, we spend a lot of time learning new things. Many courses and qualifications are structured to start with the basic ideas of a topic which then become gradually more complex, building on what we have previously learnt. This means it is very important that we can remember extended things that we have heard. This might be from listening to a teacher, watching a lecture or viewing an informative video clip. After learning about a new idea, it is useful to think about it before discussing it with our peers or teachers. By focusing on the key points, we are able to retain the most important parts of what we have heard. This can be helpful when revising for a test or to help us support others to understand an idea.
Why this skill step matters in the workplace
In the workplace, we often work in teams. At times, some team members may be unable to attend a meeting, presentation or call but important ideas might have been discussed. In order for us to keep our team informed and to get their opinion, it is important that we are able to listen carefully and share what we have heard accurately. Someone might pass on some helpful feedback, share a positive experience or lodge a complaint and it is important that we can identify the key points of what has been said and share this with the right colleagues. In the workplace being time efficient is highly valued. Therefore, it is very important to share only the key points of a conversation or meeting after carefully considering what they are.
Why this skill step matters in wider life
When away from work or education, we may spend quite a bit of time with other people, perhaps as a member of a large club, with friends or family, or even volunteering. If we are taking part in activities, it will be important that we listen to the instructions and then act accordingly. We maybe expected to support more junior members of the team and being able to recall and share helpful information will be important to this role. In addition, we might take part in group discussions with friends or family members. During these conversations, we might want to share ideas or thoughts that we have previously heard. Choosing the key points and sharing them accurately will be important to having an effective discussion.
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!
- Find and listen to a piece of extended talk that lasts 3-5 minutes. This could be a speech, a story or a short discussion. After listening, take time to think about what you heard and note down the key points or important facts. Listen to it again. Did you note down all of the most important information? Did you miss anything out? How could you prevent that from happening next time?
- With a group of friends or peers, play a listening game. One person whispers a short story to someone else then that person shares it with the next person, trying to recall it before passing it on to the next person. The last person then shares the story aloud. How accurate was the story? Where did it go wrong? Why might this be?
- Ask a friend or peer to share some important information with you which they need you to pass on to someone else. This could be something that happened to them recently, or a longer set of instructions, or a decision about something coming up. When receiving the important information, assess the space you are in for any distractions. For example, if you are in a noisy coffee shop, you might prefer to take the conversation outside where there are fewer distractions. What techniques could you use to stay focused? Are you confident you will pass on all of the key points to the next person?
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Teaching It
To teach this step:
- The learners should listen to an extended talk of 3-5 minutes, then take time to think about what they have heard and what the most important facts are. The teacher can model and scaffold this initially by listening with them and showing them how to think about what the most important pieces of information are.
- Once this has been modelled to learners then they can practice by listening to an extended talk or story from you for 3-5 minutes. The teacher should give them a chance to think about what they heard, and then try to tell the story to one another.
- Another good activity, if the group makes it feasible is to play a version of ‘Chinese whispers’ – they each pass a short story along to someone else, try to recall it and then pass it on to the next person.
Reinforcing it
This is a step that lends itself to regular practice in the classroom setting, and once mastered, will support learning and a positive classroom dynamic. The teacher can:
- Routinely remind learners before they are listening to an explanation that they will need to be able to tell someone else what is going to happen next. The teacher could even only tell half the learners, so that they then need to explain what is happening to someone else.
- Encourage learners to listen to a story or learn something new at home and come to class ready to recall and share what they learnt.
Assessing it
This step lends itself well to being assessed through a simple exercise, although it can also be observed over time.
- The teacher could get learners to listen to a short explanation of something that you are studying – either on video or purely by listening. The learners could then work with a teaching assistant to recall what they could from what they have heard.
- The teacher could observe learners when they are being given some new information, and how well they can pass that information on to someone else.
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Build it at work:
This step is relevant to everyone who is working with others in the course of their work, whether colleagues, customers or partners.
To build this step in the work environment, managers could:
- Discuss the importance of effective listening with an individual. A manager might extend this conversation to explore how they can support an individual to think first about what you have heard first before attempting to share it with other people.
- Explain to an individual the typical ways people remember the things they hear to provide individuals with some ideas on how they might retain and process information.
- Model a process of turning the information they are hearing into a story, during a team meeting, to demonstrate an effective way of processing a lot of information. This might work most effectively if the manager used flipchart paper to display the story as it is constructed. At the end of the modelling the manager might ask the group to judge how helpful this technique has been at helping them to retain the information they have heard.
- Task an individual to shadow a staff member involved in collecting customer feedback over the telephone. The individual could observe the staff member carrying out the processes of listening to customers feedback, processing the information and reporting their findings to the rest of the team. This could provide an example for the individual to follow.
- Reflect with an individual on the barriers they face when trying to tell someone else something they have heard. The manager might use the reflection questions to support this process.
Practising it:
There are plenty of opportunities for building this skill step in the workplace:
- Working with colleagues: During discussions with colleagues about work to be completed, which need to be shared accurately with other members of the team.
- Working with customers or clients: When collecting customer orders or handling feedback that needs to be passed on to other members of the team.
Reviewing it:
For those already employed, this step is best assessed through observing or questioning an individual. For instance:
- A manager might question an individual to report the contents of a conversation they have been part of. A manager might listen to an individual’s response to check for accuracy.
- A manager might observe an individual as they re-explain some instructions that they were given by someone else. By observing the interaction, the manager can check if the individual can successfully re-tell information to someone else.
Spotting it in recruitment:
During the recruitment process, this step could be assessed by:
- Providing a briefing at the start of an interview process, and then questioning the individual during the interview to check they are able to retell that information.
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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
