A glimpse into the subtleties of facilitating across cultures.
We recently delivered our Compact Slides & One-Pagers programme for a group of senior leaders at a telecommunications company in Eastern Europe. While our team has worked with European audiences before, this was our Tammy Selvam’s first attempt at facilitating a session in Poland.
From the start, the participants were highly engaged. They asked questions, challenged the reasoning behind the activities, and voiced strong opinions. At first, Tammy misread this as pushback and wondered if she was losing the room. But at midday, one participant came forward and said, “I’m really enjoying the training.” That one comment reframed everything. As Tammy reported, “What I had mistaken for resistance was actually active interest, just communicated differently.”
The moment that truly captured this cultural difference between Asian and Polish audiences came during the final showcase. Participants had created their own one-pager slides and uploaded them to Miro. The group immediately focused on one particular slide and said they liked it. Naturally, Tammy asked, “What do you like about this slide?”
One by one, they responded:
“The font should have been larger.”
“The icon isn’t placed quite right.”
“There’s too much white space.”
Comment after comment rolled in. All of them were critiques. Eventually, Tammy paused and said, “Hold up. You said you liked this slide, but all I’m hearing is criticism!”
The room burst into laughter. Then one participant replied, “That’s just how we are. This is how we show our appreciation.” And the slide’s owner, with perfect timing, said, “Well, my luck. I was born in this country. I’ll just take it.”
It was a perfect reminder that appreciation doesn’t always come wrapped in praise. As Tammy puts it, “When facilitating across cultures, it’s not just the slides we need to read. It’s the room, too.”
