Aiming High Step 9

Outcomes

To achieve Step 9, learners will have to identify where they need to involve other people in their plans, and how to engage them with the effort. 

In earlier steps, learners explored how to set goals and start to develop plans by thinking about the required tasks and resources. Although the previous step touched on the importance of human resources, involving others in plans is worth additional focus. 

Learners need to be able to:

• Identify when they need others to support them in their plans

• Engage people they need with their efforts

Introduction

• Sometimes, we cannot complete our goals by ourselves. This is particularly true for bigger goals, or long-term goals. 

• Involving the right people to support you to achieve your goals is important. You will want to think about how they might be able to help you by thinking about:

  • Do you they have particular skills, expert knowledge or experience of what you are trying to do so? If so, they might be good for advice or to help.

  • Do they have strong networks of people they know who might be able to help you or provide you with resources, even if they can’t directly? If so, they might be good for connections.

  • Do they control particular resources that you might need – like a space you need, a physical asset like a machine or technology? In which case, they can help you to secure that resource.

  • Do they also have a strong interest in achieving the same goal – for example, if you are on a team together? In this case, you might be able to work together to share the goal.

Teach & Apply

• When you engage people to support your plans in any way already mentioned, you will need to convince them. Convincing them is like persuading them so that they make the decision that they want to help you out. There are several parts to persuading people to support you: 

  • Showing them why the goal that you are working towards is worthwhile: What will be different if you achieve the goal? Why does it matter to you personally?

  • Explaining why helping you will be good for them: What will their reward for helping you? This might be financial if you are paying them for their help, or it might be that your achieving your goal helps them to complete one of their goals.

  • Giving them confidence that you can do it: If people are going to help you, they want to know that you are likely to be successful. How can you show that you are likely to be successful?

• If you use these ideas, then you are much more likely to be able to get the support you need to achieve your goals.

Reflection & Assessment

Embed these strategies across your teaching and coaching to help learners apply what they’ve learnt.

• Where learners take responsibility for their goals and creating plans to achieve them, learners can practise these steps to involve others. It might also be possible for them to think about how they persuade people of something they want support or help with, and to try out this persuasive talk in activities.

Use these ideas for ways of assessing this skill step to help you check learners’ understanding and confidence.

• This step is best assessed through an extended project, where learners have to really put their ideas into practice and persuade people to help them to achieve their goals, e.g. a sports fundraiser event. Where this is not possible, a shorter simulation could be used, including the use of scripting or role play to act out persuasive conversations.

• Ask these reflective questions:

  • When do we need to involve other people to achieve our plans?

  • Why are people different to other types of resources?

  • How can you convince people to support you in achieving your plans?