1.010.1 Quiz: Introductory BYB! Session NOT IN USE

The next section in the presentation is concerned with how we develop soft skills.

Here are some sentences about hard and soft skills to complete:

Next comes a short section on What Employers Want.

This section is to help you convince participants that soft skills are essential in today’s world of work. If you succeed in this, participants are more likely to engage in the rest of the presentation.

The slides provide prompts for you here. However, there are some additional points you can include to reinforce the statistics.

Here are some reminders:

The discussion ‘How Do We Communicate’ needs to identify the 3 main forms of communication:

1. Verbal Communication
2. Non-verbal communication (body language)
3. Written Communication.

We will only be considering the first 2 forms.

Describe 3 ways we communicate, in each of these two forms.

We use a driving analogy to explain the concept of Focuses and how they become barriers.

Before explaining this, tell participants that we use an analogy – a story – to explain what the barriers are.

It’s important that this simple analogy becomes embedded learning, as it underpins all the concepts that follow.

Bring this story to life, and aid memory, by painting a picture of each Focus. Use descriptive words, hand gestures and eye movements to accompany everything you’re describing.

Throughout the rest of the session, come back to this analogy as often as you like, to keep reminding participants of it, and pinning new learning to it. For example, at the start of a Focus section, recap the previous Focuses, and link them – and the upcoming Focus – to the driving analogy.

In the driving analogy, which which aspects of driving a car relate to each Focus?

What happens when Right Focus becomes a barrier? Tick all that apply.

While it’s in the nature of all barriers to be challenging, Downward Focus is the Barrier that has the most opportunity to ‘trigger’ participants. However, to give participants the most benefit, we don’t want to back away from the difficult material that breaking this barrier confronts.

Downward Focus is purposely placed in the middle of the Focuses, to allow for the presentation to curve back through easier barriers. You can therefore enable exploration of this darker material, safe in the knowledge that you can guide participants safely out the other side.

We call this the ‘spookiest’ of the barriers, and use terms such as ’emotional vampires’. While we’re not backing away from the difficult material, we simultaneously bring a hint of humour to it. If you can maintain this balance, you’ll find that participants are more willing to discuss the challenging issues that are integral to breaking through Downward Focus.

Introducing Downward Focus takes a little more explanation than the other Focuses.

Complete the following introductory points:

We explain Backward Focus by asking participants to consider that we’re all born into ‘the past’.

Briefly, what does this mean and how can ‘the past’ be a barrier?

The next slide gives you prompts for 4 Inward Focus skills.

As with all skills definitions that you have, it’s fine to read these rather than memorise them, as they are intended to be ‘dictionary’ definitions. However, make sure you fully understand these and could expand on them – with examples as discussed previously – to bring them to life and embed the learning.

For example, Social Interaction is about “getting on well with all kinds of people”…not just people who look like us, but people of different ages, backgrounds, and cultures.

How would you expand on the definition of Negotiating, perhaps by way of an example:

As with the skills slides, the quote slides in the presentation provide an opportunity for discussions of varying depth and length, so are useful in adapting the 1.5 hour to a 2 hour presentation.

The Inward Focus quote is Words Are The Most Powerful Drug Used By Mankind.

If time, rather than just reading the quotes, also ask what participants think they mean, whether they agree with them, etc.

Give an example to illustrate the power of words…someone or something that used the power of words to influence others (for good or evil)?

The purpose of the ‘Word Play’ activity is:

• To improve communication skills
• To highlight how the way we say words changes their meaning
• To consider how we communicate meaning
• To think about how others communicate with us

Participants often struggle with this activity to start with.

Invite them to be like actors, and to experiment with emphasising each word. They’re working in pairs, so while one experiments with saying the sentence, the other is their audience and interprets what they are hearing.

You may need to demonstrate these sentences, to help participants grasp the different meanings. Try first doing this without using body language, as students tend to pick up on that aspect more quickly. However, if the meaning is still not apparent to participants, incorporate body language to nudge them. Practice this beforehand, so you can make the emphasis and meaning clear to the listener.

Don’t rush to give solutions – participants usually ‘click’ eventually.

Put the sentences below together with their possible meaning – the word in bracket is emphasised:

How would you explain the following terms to participants:

1. A wolf in sheep’s clothing
2. Emotional vampires
3. Red flags
4. Gut reaction

The next slide features two of the Backward Focus skills you’ve just discussed, related to how they are valued by employers.

This is an opportunity to remind participants of various things.

Link the following statements:

The next slide prompts you with ‘Leadership and Knowing Yourself’.

Fill in the blanks to cover the points you’ll raise here:

Once the driving analogy has been told, you explain that “it’s the same in life”.

Fill in the blanks to remind you what this means:

The two previous activities gave participants the opportunity to consider verbal and non-verbal communication (or body language), which they’d identified as 2 of the 3 main forms of communication in the preceding discussion. 

Wrap this section up by reminding them that we break through Inward Focus by becoming more aware of what we are communicating to others through our words and actions.

The next slide is a quote to show that Inward Focus skills are not only important personally, they are also in demand from employers.

NB the quote is from a big player in the tech world. Point this out. Often we think that technology is what is most important. But the quote reminds us that many people in the tech world now think that soft skills are more important. 

The next slide reads: Relationships and Communication. What will you say here, to explain this?

‘Whose Box Is It Anyway?’ is the Backward Focus activity.

Responses are recorded on the flip chart, and participants are given plenty of time to consider their answers, with only non-specific prompts as far as is possible.

Ideally responses will start with overarching ‘boxes’, and then drill down into smaller and smaller ones.

What is the purpose of ‘Whose Box Is It Anyway?’ And how would you wrap up this activity?

There are several things you want to say when introducing each new Focus.

Complete the following as a reminder:

The next slide gives you prompts for 4 specific skills.

The 5 skills slides in the presentation provide an opportunity for discussions of varying depth and length, so are useful in adapting the 1.5 hour to a 2 hour presentation.

The following points relate to the skills slides in all Focuses.

• You’ll ask participants whether they understand these terms.
• Some terms may be unknown to the participants – e.g Using Your Initiative – and will need a full explanation.
• Sometimes the term itself will be understood – e.g. Leadership – but you will need to expand on the definition given in the script, for it to have relevance. Eg. “Leadership doesn’t just mean running a country or a business, it also means leading a small team, or leading yourself – being the director of your own life.”
• When discussing the skills try to find a context that, in a sentence, will bring the skill to life for the group. Don’t be specific when doing this. Rather choose general examples – or examples from your own experience – that you think they might relate to. In other words, allow them to make the association. For example, if participants are refugees, the skill ‘Adaptability’ can easily be associated with an example that highlights making a big change in life, moving from one culture to another, or managing the shift from one situation to something entirely new. 

How would you explain the term ‘Using Your Initiative’, and with what example might you bring this skill to life?

The ‘handshake” section is an opportunity to get participants standing up and moving around – and will encourage laughter.

Both facilitators should join in with the activities, to help participants overcome any reserve.

After the Dr York videos, students sit for a moment, while you explain why handshakes are important.

Fill in the following sentences, covering points you’ll want to include here:

Next is Inward Focus. After the introductory slides you get one that provides 4 prompts for when Inward Focus is useful.

This slide is animated. Watching it will give you prompts, so you can describe how soft skills determine ‘how we do whatever we do’.

Match the following images and actions:

The final quote of the session is “Do not fear mistakes, there are none”. Ask participants to consider what that means.

This can be related to the questions they’ve just been asked, where there is no right of wrong answer – as well as more broadly…things that were once considered ‘mistakes’ are now normal ways of life, or discoveries that were made through making a mistake etc.

As you’ll be playing the music of Miles Davis to accompany them completing their feedback forms, ask participants if they know who he is. Point to him on the slide (on the far left) and let them know he was a great jazz trumpeter.

Then explain what will be happening in the final few minutes, as in the script.

What is the order of the Wrap-Up sequence?

In order to take the final photograph you need to get participants to complete the Photo Permission Sheet. In a one-off session such as this, the best way is to tell them about this while they are completing their Feedback Form. Say that we would like to take a photograph at the very end, so we can show it to our funders who have paid for this session. The photo will not be made public or go onto social media. If they are okay with having their photo taken, ask them to sign the Photo Permission Form that you’ll pass around. 

We try to involve everyone, and encourage everyone to participate throughout the session. However, it can be a challenge, bringing out the more reserved who would happily stay silent, quietening down the more boisterous who would dominate the group if given free rein, and involving everyone in between.

The final questions section is an opportunity to involve everyone equally.  These are non-intrusive questions that anyone can find an answer to – particularly the first question, “What did you love doing as a child”.

What techniques would you use to encourage everyone to answer these question?

We do the Left Focus ‘Brain Warm-Up’ Activity to prepare participants for the subsequent questions we’re going to ask.

Learn the Thumb n Pinky dance! Then you can encourage participants to keep trying it, to show that it is achievable with some practice.

We also ask them to consider the reasons that might hold them back from answering the questions.

If they notice themselves holding back, we ask them to consider why – ie to use meta cognition. However, we also suggest that they answer anyway. This is so they break through the barrier.

What are 4 reasons that might hold somebody back from answering one of the questions we pose? (ie a question that does not have a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer).

When you’re discussing and defining the Left Focus skills with participants, it’s an opportunity to emphasise why these skills are so important to us now, personally and professionally.

When considering Intuitive Responses, what example could you give that would bring it to life, and help participants see its value?

The dominating influence of Left Focus is Logic.

Current education systems tend to be geared almost entirely towards logic, rather than towards the more abstract skills such as creativity. All teaching and testing emphasises this imbalance, which means that participants are probably unaware of how important Left Focus skills are at this time. As a consequence, this barrier is somewhat hidden in plain sight. So the first task we have as facilitators is to reveal this barrier, by helping participants:

• understand that education has skewed us away from using these skills, all of which we used in abundance as children
• be confident that employers value these skills highly
• recognise that living in a time of constant change we need these skills to support our personal wellbeing

What do we need to develop, in order to break through the barrier of Left Focus?

We say that the Right Focus skills don’t sound super exciting – and they’re not supposed to.

However, that does not mean that we make them dull! Nor that we think they’re dull.

Participants have been told all their lives by school, college, and parents that they must be organised etc – and they often have a resistance to these skills as a result.

Our goal as a facilitator is to show how these skills are essential to all the exciting, interesting, creative things that participants want to do.

We must to paint a different picture – one that will enable the participants to develop their intrinsic motivation to develop these skills.

Through the artist’s story, as well as our attitude to these skills, we show that, although Right Focus skills are not the stars of the show, they underpin everything amazing that we want to do in our lives. Without these skills, everything we attempt to build will collapse.

We want the participants to find their own reasons for taking these Right Focus skills seriously, as this will motivate them to break through this barrier.

What 2 analogies do we make about Right Focus skills?

In what order does The Artist’s Exhibition activity happen?

Put the following in the correct sequence:

Why do we use artists to demonstrate the importance of structure and time management to participants?

Give 3 reasons: