Relearning to communicate

Transcript

1. UX Australia 2019 (AUUXAU3008D) Main Room, Day 2 – 30th August, 2019 PILAR ESTEBAN: Hi, hello. Good afternoon. I am Pilar Esteban. I am part of the experience team. Thank you, guys. And the study I want to share with you today is how (inaudible). But before I start I would like you to meet someone. Yeah, that is me. Four years ago in Madrid, my home town. That person there and this person here, they have to be different. The first one is that person is a Spanish person talking to Spanish people in Spain. That is a big difference. The second one is back then I didn't speak any English at all. And I didn't care in that moment but it was going to become very, very important and I tell you why. Two months after that picture was taken, I decided to move to Sydney to start working (inaudible) a bit crazy not being able to speak English at all. The journey I want to tell today is what that was for me and how that changed me as a person but also (inaudible). Let's start from the very beginning. So when I move here, I was not able to understand anything and this is what I was wearing at the time. This is my Facebook, I didn't know what you are talk -- this is my face - I don't know what you are talking about. I was going to the office, sitting there like for an hour, and hour and a half in a meeting, just not understanding what anyone was saying around me at all. Going back to my desk, wait for someone to send an email, use Google translator, work out what I had to do, and send the email back after using Google translator. Don't do that. Every day I was going home and thinking tomorrow they are going to fire me. They never did. Thanks. But from this period I cannot (inaudible) something but you can learn a lot of things of serving people. Like body language, what people have, the group dynamics and I discovered something I never realised before - that is, that some people talk all the time and some people don't get to talk at all. And before I was so busy talking all the time that I didn't ever realise that I was not letting other people speak. So it was a finding for me. Thanks God a few months after I start being able to kind of understand what people were saying. That kind of happen naturally when you are immersed day after day you start understanding. The very interesting thing about this time is like I start learning how to listen without thinking of the response. Listen to understand what the other person was saying. And, again, that was a big, big change. I never did that before. At this time I was able to speak my first words in English and it was great. I have been e remember my very first big milestone and that was to go to the bar and ask for a beer myself. That was a very, very big one. I will talk Pilar, be careful, because things are not the same as in Spain and in Australia. In Spain you go to the bar and you say, hey, one beer and that's OK. So they tell me that's not going to work here. So I was very mindful of that. I went with my best smile and looked to the bar man and I said, "Can I please have a beer, please." And the guy looked back and he understood me and he said something I was not expecting at all. He said, "Which one?" And it really broke my heart, like what! In Spain, everyone has one beer. You see the sign in the door of the bar and you go to the bar and you ask for a beer and you get a beer. So it's obviously very amazing to have like 20 beers to choose from, but in that moment for me was a terrible experience. From that moment, I understood, like, you can get a lot of things well but if you're going to understand the context, if you don't understand what the expectation of the person you are talking with, you may get everything absolutely wrong. So (inaudible)
2. UX Australia 2019 (AUUXAU3008D) Main Room, Day 2 – 30th August, 2019 Page 2 of 2 There is a very funny thing when you start talking a language and understanding a language. You think it's about the words we speak. But it's not. It's like a mental model behind that is very, very important. I explain you this. In Spain we don't say, "I love you." We have that word di amo, but that is for the long songs >> We don't say that to each other. The way we say I love you is, "I want you." So many people think that's very honest language, like good. But, no, because we say that to our family, to our friends, and as you can see here, even to mum the way we say it, like that. Unfortunately I learn this in the wrong way. I am going to explain this. So it was a very hard week with the team (inaudible) amazing kind of thing. I look to his face and say loud, "I want you, man!" His face was like wow! Obviously he understood I was not meaning what I was saying but I think to get the point at the start it helps. So just remember that, it's important. Anyway, the hardest part of the whole journey is the last part, is getting your voice back. From that kind of very confident Spanish person four years ago to this person who is trembling it's a big difference. When you are a different person in the room it doesn't matter if it's your accent is funny or your (inaudible) is different or you're an introvert, it's harder to find that space to be yourself, to make yourself here. That is why I decide to share with you my journey, just hoping that that kind of let me say how you can use them in day to day. So just remember first understand what's going on, and then listen without judgment to understand that other person, also understand the context or the expectation of the person you are communicating or understanding for, change your mental model, acknowledge that not everyone has the same mental model about things, and very important - create a space for people to be themselves. You will rock. Before I finish, I wanted to share this picture with you. This is part of the amazing team in (inaudible). This is one of our (inaudible). Something I learned working with them is like, OK, we are very good designer, each individual, but also very different people with different background and especially different personalities. But we are strong as a team altogether with our diversity but each of us separately. So the reason we are great is because everyone has a space, everyone has been here and everyone can express themselves. It's amazing to work with you guys and also we like to thank my (inaudible) team in the main, they were superamazing and I couldn't be here without them. So thank you, everyone. [APPLAUSE]