Ask, Not Tell

I mentioned an offsite meeting in HK.    I learnt something more about empathy.

The meeting room we used was spacious with a lot of natural light coming from the balcony.    But simply because it was so spacious, some slides were not legible to the participants at the back of the room.   Whilst I was showing the slides, I started to realise this issue.   And my first reaction to show my empathy by saying ‘…let me show you the activity instruction in writing….  I understand that the slide is not clear to those at the back…  let me read it out for you….’

It was alright until ……. I said the above a few times during the day.    It became annoying when I reminded them the problem without doing anything about it (at least from the participants’ perspective)   In fact, I only realised this after the event when someone gave me feedback.

I always think that showing empathy is always good.   But it seems that sometimes it is not….  when you cannot do about the underlying issue.