I really reject the idea of soft skills. There is nothing soft about them. We have hard skills & we have human skills. We need more human skills in business today. — Simon Sinek
Human-skills weren’t taught extensively in schools and universities. I remember being taught what subject-verb agreement was, which helped me to write in perfect grammar but never the ways of how to communicate perfectly so that my product managers and I would come to an agreement. I was taught the importance of creating an outline first before doing any kind of writing but never how to present them in a class. I was taught that reciting in class would pull my grades up but I wasn’t taught how to respond when I gave the wrong answer and my classmates laughed.
No, I wasn’t taught.
But I learned them.
I learned them the hard way.
And so in this article, I’ll be sharing 3 human skills I believe every Product designer should know. But just like the hard skills, mastering them won’t happen overnight. It will take years of practice (or maybe endless practice) and definitely tons of failures.
So let’s start.
Communication
You can’t expect your product managers or colleagues to give you a thumbs-up just by merely showing off your work, and say “My work is done!”
Your work doesn’t end there my friend. Your real work is just about to start.
You have to communicate or at most times over-communicate what you did, why you did it, and even how you did it. But the biggest question is:
How do I communicate well?
I remember personally how much I suck when I started working in a big startup where I spent 30% on designing and 70% on alignment and communicating. And I would say that, for us to communicate well there are 4 things to take note of:
1. Listening
“The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply,” Stephen Covey.
When you come to a point where you don’t see eye to eye with the people you are working with, we usually just jump to the behavior of defense mode. We put our shields up, ears closed, and swords ready to attack right after they finish their piece.
We never try to listen.
And so, learn the art of listening and be intentional. Try to keep an open mind and understand where the other person is coming from. You might not be aligned on some points, but with listening and understanding, you can both make your way in having a decision that benefits both parties, and everybody goes home happy 😊.
2. Questioning
You would know that someone is really listening to you when they ask you questions. Thus, questioning comes with listening.
Questioning is your tool to slowly unfold the reasons why your teammates or colleagues made such decisions, and it helps you move away from your own biases.
Instead of going straight to their face and tell them,
“Your color of pink is too bright. It’s not even in our design guideline”
Why don’t we ask them a simple question such as,
“I’m just wondering, why we chose this color of pink?” or “Can you walk me through your thought-process of coming up with the colors?”
3. Choice of words and tone of voice
Raise your words not your voice.
Arguments happen not because of different perspectives but because of wrong words raised by our raised voices.
A lot of discussions could be made better when we try to replace
“it sucks” with “here’s what can be improved”
or
“you’re late!” with “just try to be earlier next time”
4. Timing
In a grander scheme of things, knowing the timing is hard. We don’t know the right time to put up a business, the right time to invest, or even the right time to get married. And the same thing with communication. It is hard when to say your piece especially if it doesn’t share the same perspective with the person.
You can’t just barge into their desk and say your sentiment then leave, that would mean war to them. And so that’s why a build-up has to happen. It is an ingredient to the right timing when you want to give your critic, and you can do the build-up by simply asking questions (back to point #2).
Asking questions is your way to build rapport, and to clear or contradict your own biases before giving your critic or sentiment. Asking questions is like preparing the field before the real game starts.
Curiosity
I try not to worry about what that’s going to look like. If you worry about looking stupid, that’s when you look really stupid. — Rob Schneider
I guess when we talk about curiosity sometimes it gets intertwined with stupidity. Curiosity deals with the art of asking questions, and most of us are afraid to ask questions because of the following reasons:
- We might be exposed that we are impostors
- We would look stupid
- We don’t like being perceived as impostor and stupid
But here’s the thing.
No one cares.
No one cares because just like you, they’re also busy thinking that they might look stupid. So go fire and shoot those questions you have. Holding back won’t help you understand the scope of your project and provide the best design solutions, but asking questions will help you. So be curious and start asking questions.
Confidence to say “No” and “I don’t know”
Confidence to share your work and present to the stakeholders without a sweat is the kind of confidence we are striving for. But more than this, I believe we should also work on having the confidence to say “No” and to say “I don’t know”. We rarely say “No” for we want to be a “Yes boss” kind of designer, but being this kind of designer doesn’t give us additional EXP in our skillset bar but rather just additional work. And so, learn to stand on your ground, say “No” (nicely) if you have to, or if you’re not sure yet, you can simply say these lines,
“I’ll think about it. I’ll look into it. I’ll get back to you”
On the other hand, saying “I don’t know” is as hard as saying “No”. We feel that shrugging our shoulders would mean we didn’t do our jobs well and saying it would put us in the spotlight. But “I don’t know” only means
“I will look into it, but I need a helping hand to do it”
And if you are on the receiving end, and you know that you can help this person who said “I don’t know” then don’t hesitate to volunteer and help, because after all, you all work as a team.
Takeaways
We all want to be heard but no one wants to listen. And it won’t hurt if we all try to be one.
If they still doesn’t agree and you’ve already done your part to convince them, then leave them in peace and tell them “just think about it”. Later on, you’ll see them changing their mind and becoming your ally. They just need that extra space and time to “think about it”.
It’s okay to say “I don’t know”. It makes you human
This article is inspired by 5 Soft Skills Every Product Designer Should Master
