The most important skill for a designer working abroad

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I was born in São Paulo, Brazil and spent most of my life speaking mainly Portuguese. A few years ago, I moved to Vancouver, Canada to take a business class. My English was relatively ok when I first settled in since I had already spent a few years studying the language back in Brazil.

I wanted to keep working as a designer in Canada since that had been my profession for more than 7 years in my home country. My skills were pretty much transferable: I would use the same software suite, I had experience, and I knew how to handle design revisions and deadlines.

I was confident I could make it in Vancouver as a designer.

However, one of the biggest challenges ahead of me was adapting my workplace communication skills.

In my native language, I knew the communication rules in a workplace — how to be assertive without being rude, how to be soft when I needed to, how to be polite without being a pushover, and so on. Unfortunately, these skills that seemed like a second nature to me didn’t come as naturally once I continued my career in an environment dominated by my second language. To tell you the truth, I am still mastering them.

Mike Monteiro, co-founder and design director of Mule Design, says “No matter how good the work is, if you can’t sell it you haven’t finished the job.” I can’t agree more with that. The first few times I had to rationalize my design decisions or sell an idea in Canada, I failed… And I’ve failed many times since then. I tried to explain my design choices without the rich vocabulary I needed to make a good case for them. I went over my argument again and again, using different words and approaches, but the other person in the conversation either wouldn’t understand exactly what I meant or simply wasn’t convinced. This resulted in frustration, sadness, and a feeling that lingered inside my mind suggesting that I wasn’t capable of doing my job as well as I could in Brazil. Instead of allowing myself to continue being discouraged by the difficulties I was having, I decided to take action and improve my ability to effectively sell my design ideas.

I am still working at this, but here is a list of action items that have helped me immensely.

1. Embrace difficult conversations with team members about my design decisions. I try to engage in discussions instead of avoiding them. Of course I have to pick my battles because not every detail deserves a long discussion. I also do my best to understand my teammates’ point of view. A great communicator also has to be a great listener. One goes hand in hand with other. Being humble and open minded to revisions is an important skill for any designer.
2. Ask questions in meetings. When I got my first job at a big company in Vancouver I was terrified to ask questions during meetings. Sometimes I really wanted to know more about things that were presented and I would sit quietly, hoping somebody else would ask the same question. I started small: first I would try to talk to the presenter after the meeting to ask my question one on one. Then I decided to challenge myself: I raised my hand and asked questions during large meetings. It was very uncomfortable at first. Sometimes people would ask me to repeat my question and I would get very nervous. Thankfully, I had considerate co-workers that kindly waited while I rephrased and clarified what I had in mind. Even after doing this many times I still don’t feel 100% comfortable but I can say that it is way easier than when I began.
3. Do presentations. I always thought public speaking wasn’t for me. It is a nerve wracking experience to present in front of a large audience, but trust me, doing so in another language is much harder. In my past jobs here I’ve had to do a few presentations, mainly pitching ideas to my team or executives. Once I even presented an initiative I spearheaded to a big department using a microphone, on a stage, with the CEO sitting in the audience. Needless to say, it was very hard to sleep the night before. As anxious as I was, I should also mention that I was very, very excited. In every presentation I do I learn a little bit more about how to make it better the next time. Much like asking questions in meetings, the more I do it, the less uncomfortable it feels. I still feel butterflies in my stomach before a presentation but they are much smaller than before.
4. Listen to design podcasts in English. Listening to podcasts gives me familiarity with the pronunciation of the words, with how to structure sentences and it also adds more words to my technical vocabulary.
5. Read in English. A lot. Blogs, articles, books (I am currently reading one about improving writing skills — something I never thought I would consider reading as a designer). I try to pay attention not only to the content but also to the structure. If it is an article I like I try to identify what I like about it and why the writing is so engaging to me. By paying attention to the structure I get some leanings that I can use to write my own content in the future.
6. Write Medium articles. This is my newest challenge. Writing is an essential skill that I need to improve. The practice of reading over a body of text again and again, polishing essential parts and removing unnecessary parts is a great exercise.
7. Celebrate the small wins 🍷. Doing all the steps above can be challenging and tiring. For this reason, it is very important to keep motivated. One technique that helps me is to celebrate every victory I have, even the small ones, for instance: convincing somebody of my point of view, asking questions in large groups of people, and receiving positive feedback on a presentation. Doing so has helped me to keep a strong focus on my mission to be a better communicator in English.

The task is not done yet and I still struggle with communication here and there. I think it is a work in progress and I will get better at it over time, as long as I keep practicing. I hope this article helps individuals who are also struggling with language and communication skills when they are building their career in another country.

How about you? What do you do to continually sharpen your communication skills while living abroad? Please share your techniques in the comments, I would love to hear your tips!