[:en]As UXers, it is our professional goal to assert on behalf of the end users of the products and services we build. Yet, many of us struggle with the fundamentals of assertive communication. We have been teaching assertiveness workshops to hundreds of UXers and have found this to be a common issue.

UXers are professional influencers who rely on rapport with cross-functional stakeholders. This can cause us to be timid to a fault, fearing damage to these relationships. Other times, we can be aggressive as we try to wield greater influence on others.

While this struggle is not unique to UX professionals, assertive communication skills are fundamental to our success because they underlie effective influence, persuasion, negotiation, relationship building, and other critical soft skills.

Our goal is to introduce you to a framework for being more assertive. In a separate article in the next issue, we will discuss strategies for putting this framework into action.

What Is Assertiveness?

To be assertive means to conduct yourself with sincere and clearly communicated respect for both yourself and for others. Respect is showing regard for feelings, opinions, and rights.

We can contrast assertive behavior with passive and aggressive behavior. To be passive means not respecting your own opinions and rights. To be aggressive means not respecting the rights and opinions of other people.

Table 1 gives more detail about these contrasting communication styles, along with a third style—passive-aggressiveness. Take a moment to review and think of times when you have employed each style in your personal and professional life. Chances are you have employed each one of these at different times and in different contexts. This content is adapted from The Assertiveness Workbook by Randy Paterson.

Table 1. Assertive and non-assertive communication styles.

Let’s address some misconceptions about assertiveness.

Misconception 1: Assertiveness Is an Immutable Personality Trait

Think of assertiveness as a skill that requires practice. Most of us are assertive at least some of the time, but have bad habits that we fall into depending on context. For example, you may be assertive with direct colleagues, passive with your management, or aggressive with people from other business units inside your company. When we are stressed, we tend to resort to fight (aggressive) or flight (passive) behaviors.

We all have the ability to behave assertively, but we should strive to become more consistently assertive. One approach is to identify difficult situations and adopt specific assertiveness strategies.

Misconception 2: Assertive Is the Midpoint between Passive and Aggressive

Assertiveness is qualitatively different from passive or aggressive styles. Unfortunately, it is very common to confuse assertiveness with aggressiveness.

If you skew passive and would like to self-correct, your goal should not be to speak louder or be more forceful. Rather, the goal should be to hold your boundaries and convey more self-respect as you communicate with others. As you do, maintain the respectfulness that you naturally show for others.

Consider this example: A stakeholder asks you to produce a design on short notice (unreasonably short notice, in your opinion). Previously you have responded too passively in these situations, often agreeing to requests that left you working long hours and feeling burned out, as well as unappreciated.

You want to try a more assertive response, but you have a lot of negative emotion and resentment built up. You burst out: “That is a ridiculous! Don’t you think I have a life? You people are jerks!” While this is an honest expression, it shows disrespect by treating the request as unreasonable (to you it is, to them it might not be) and making negative judgments about the requester (a jerk who thinks you don’t have a life). These statements might get your stakeholder to back off, or they might make the person feel defensive and angry so that they double down on their request. Either way, there are likely to be negative long-term consequences to this working relationship.

A more assertive response would acknowledge their right to make the request and then focus on your own boundaries. “I can see this is important to you. I’m not able to commit to that deadline.” From there, you might try to work out a compromise.

Misconception 3: Assertiveness = Honesty

Assertiveness involves being direct and transparent, but it requires tact, as well. Phrases used to justify rudeness like “I’m just being honest” can be an excuse for aggressive, disrespectful communication.

Misconception 4: Assertiveness = Mind Control

You may think to yourself, “If only I was assertive enough, they will see it my way!” In reality, there is no way to guarantee the outcomes you want out of any human interaction. Assertiveness is not a strategy for getting what you want from others, though it will tend to lead you toward better outcomes.

If you find that you desire to control outcomes, consider examining your beliefs. It is good to have faith in your ideas, but there is a danger of treating the ideas of others as invalid. This thought pattern can foster aggressiveness.

Assertiveness among UX Professionals

Figure 1 shows a model of how UXers tend to communicate at work, based on our own (informal) research. It shows that UXers tend to use certain non-assertive communication styles during different career phases. Let’s dig into these tendencies:

• Junior UXers, those newest to the field, often behave more passively and passive-aggressively. Why? The main factors are lack of confidence and fear of damaging their relationships with stakeholders.
• As UXers progress in their careers, passive and passive-aggressive behaviors start to fade as they become more confident in their abilities and ideas. They also make conscious adjustments to their behavior to try to increase their impact and garner the respect they desire.
• Why do we also see that an increase in aggression replaces those passive behaviors? One reason is that aggressive tactics get results in some environments. For example, think of a designer who relentlessly pushes their ideas until others give in out of fear, exhaustion, or frustration. This designer makes a big impact and is seen as a leader. The negative consequences are not always felt immediately, so it is a self-reinforcing behavior. Another reason is that people confuse assertiveness and aggressiveness, as described earlier in this article.

These trends point to potential growth areas for UXers at different career stages:

• Early career UXers can learn to be bolder by asserting their rights, boundaries, and ideas.
• Gaining experience and confidence, UXers shed their passive habits, but need to be mindful about showing respect for the rights and views of others. Failure to do so can lead to aggressive behaviors that alienate others and impede their effectiveness.

We hope that learning this is useful for you, as it has been for us. A good next step is to identify critical situations and plan specific tactics for behaving more assertively. In a follow-up to this article, we will look into some common issues faced by UXers and lay out some ideas for addressing them with improved assertiveness.[:zh] 为何及如何在工作场所自信地进行沟通？本文提出了一个框架和想法，说明如何提高您的沟通技巧，以避免不必要的行为。

用户体验专业人士可能会在与其他团队成员和利益相关者沟通时遇到困难。我们的交流可能会受消极和攻击性态度的影响，导致发生工作场所的冲突。自信让我们能够真诚而清晰地沟通，改善我们与合作者的关系。这篇文章详细解释了什么是自信和不自信的沟通，以及用户体验专业人士可以用来提高沟通技巧的概念、策略和例子。

文章全文为英文版[:KO] 업무 현장에서 자신있게 소통해야 할 이유와 방식? 본 기사에서는 바람직스럽지 않은 행동을 피하기 위해 소통 기술을 강화하는 방법에 관한 체계와 아이디어를 제시합니다.

UX 전문가들이 다른 팀원, 이해당사자들과 소통하기가 어려울 수도 있습니다. 소극적 태도나 공격성이 우리의 대화를 가로막아 업무 현장에서 갈등을 조장할 수도 있습니다. 확신에 찬 태도는 진솔하고 명확하게 소통할 수 있게 도움을 주고 협력자들과의 관계 개선을 촉진합니다. 다음 기사에서는 적극적인 소통과 아닌 것, 그리고 UX 업무 종사자들이 소통 기술을 향상시키기 위해 실행할 수 있는 개념, 전략, 예시에 관한 현실적인 설명을 제시합니다.

전체 기사는 영어로만 제공됩니다.[:pt] Por que e como se comunicar de forma objetiva no local de trabalho? Este artigo apresenta uma estrutura e ideias sobre como aprimorar suas habilidades de comunicação para evitar comportamentos indesejados.

A comunicação com os outros membros da equipe e com as partes interessadas pode ser difícil para os profissionais de experiência do usuário. As conversas podem ser dominadas por um comportamento passivo-agressivo, criando conflitos no local de trabalho. A objetividade possibilita a comunicação sincera e clara e melhora nossa relação com os colaboradores. Este artigo apresenta explicações realistas sobre o que é e o que não é a comunicação objetiva, além de conceitos, estratégias e exemplos que os profissionais de experiência do usuário podem implementar para aprimorar suas habilidades de comunicação.

O artigo completo está disponível somente em inglês.[:ja] 職場でアサーティブなコミュニケーションをとるべき理由やその方法とは？本記事では、望まれない行動を回避するためのコミュニケーションスキル向上の方法に焦点を合わせ、そのフレームワークとアイデアを紹介する。

UXのプロが他のチームメンバーやステークホルダーとコミュニケーションをとるのは、得てして困難になる。受け身的あるいは攻撃的な姿勢は有意義な会話をストップさせ、職場での対立を引き起こしかねない。アサーティブネス（自他を尊重した自己表現もしくは自己主張）は、我々が誠実かつ明確にコミュニケーションをとり、協力者との関係を改善することを可能にする。以下の記事では、アサーティブな/アサーティブでないコミュニケーションとは何かについて実際的に説明するとともに、UXer（UXに携わる者）がコミュニケーションスキルを向上させるために実践できる概念、戦略、および模範を紹介する。

原文は英語だけになります[:es] ¿Por qué y cómo comunicarse con asertividad en el lugar de trabajo? Este artículo presenta un marco e ideas sobre cómo mejorar sus habilidades de comunicación para evitar comportamientos no deseados.

Puede ser difícil para los profesionales de experiencia de usuario comunicarse con otros miembros del equipo y las partes interesadas. La pasividad y agresividad pueden dominar nuestras conversaciones, lo que genera conflictos en el lugar de trabajo. La asertividad nos permite comunicarnos de manera clara y sencilla y mejorar nuestra relación con los colaboradores. El siguiente artículo proporciona explicaciones simples sobre qué es y qué no es comunicación asertiva. Además, brinda conceptos, estrategias y ejemplos que los profesionales de experiencia de usuario pueden implementar para mejorar sus habilidades de comunicación.

La versión completa de este artículo está sólo disponible en inglés[:]

Topics: Credibility, Personal development, Communication
Published in: March, 2019 in [:en]Open Topics[:zh]开放式主题 [:KO]논의 주제 [:pt]Temas livres [:ja] オープン・トピック [:es]Temas abiertos

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