Objective:
Students should be able to:
- Identify and respond to stakeholder needs
- Communicate enthusiasm to 'sell' new ideas, concepts or solutions
- Interact with others both to build trust for long-term relations and also to 'close the deal' to make things happen.
Overview:
The focus within this task is open idea generation, pooling the expertise/wisdom of the group to create ideas that can then be evaluated and explored; all focused within time constraints and a clear objective to 'trade up' or enhance their resources.
The focus on this task is to encourage learners to learn outside the "classroom", independently or as part of a group to influence, create and establish effective networks through negotiation and building trust. It requires a range of skills including research, idea generation and networking or sales techniques.
Activity:
Description:
The activity is run over 2 or more weeks and is learner directed experience.
Each learner/ group is given a low value object (such as "Red Paperclip") and asked over an agreed period of time to "trade the item up" to something of a higher value. Over time learners are tasked with seeing who can come up with item of highest value through the individual trades, in order to achieve this. Each trade MUST BE recorded by signature and photographic evidence the trade has taken place.
Learners are asked on completion of the task to create presentation e.g. Petcha Kutcha 20 x 20, video story, blog to share their experience with peers at a showcase event where the individual trading experience is shared and lessons learnt identified through clear/directed reflection.
All items traded up to are donated to chosen charity identified by learners, to avoid any issues of 'personal gain'.
Skill Development:
As well as working within teams, enterprise and entrepreneurship involves the ability to build effective relationships with others. Well-developed interpersonal skills form the core of relationships both within and beyond the team. Reflection on this task should acknowledge the group reaching the (perceived) highest value object, but also explore the transactional experience and the motivations to engage. This also provides the opportunity to reflect upon social and interpersonal skills, such as
- Building trust
- Influencing
- Networking
- Negotiation
- Stakeholder relations.
Resources:
Per person:
- Red Paperclip (or other item to trade e.g. something from your department or subject area
- Trade up exchange form (simple dated log of activity)
- Internet access
- Personal access to IT (Telephone; iPads/ Laptops) during the challenge
References:
Key Authors
http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.co.uk/
Books