Design Thinking

The Problem with Empathy in L&D

What happens when empathy becomes a stand-in for presence, accountability, and power? A reflection sparked by a philosophy podcast, and a cold shower for my own practice.

The Idea of Empathy

Ouch! This walk was supposed to leave some aches, just not the kind it did. Lately, I’ve been listening to philosophy podcasts while walking. This time, I picked an episode about empathy. Let’s bring some philosophy into my design thinking brain, I thought. What I didn’t expect was this hurtful truth: We have a problem with empathy in L&D and learning design.

Empathy is one of the core concepts of Design Thinking. It signals care, responsibility, and good intentions by “deeply” understanding your audience, seeing through their eyes, walking in their shoes… And it has become one of those buzzwords in L&D that makes us sound performatively responsible: We “understand” them just enough to design for them, rarely with them.

In this episode of the Overthink podcast, the hosts explore how empathy can collapse the distinction between self and other, especially when people confidently say things like “I know what you’re experiencing”. They discussed German philosopher Edith Stein’s take on empathy, which felt like a cold-water shower for me. In her 1917 dissertation, Stein defines empathy very minimally as the experience of foreign consciousness. You encounter another person and experience them as another consciousness, distinct from your own.

What I find so interesting about Stein's view is that she defines empathy as the experience of foreign consciousness. That's all it is. Empathy here is really broad and it's really basic. It does not involve me putting myself in the shoes of another. It doesn't involve me sort of imagining that they have a mind and then, you know, simulating their position. It rather just has to do with the fact that I'm in the physical presence of another person. And I feel that they are another person.

- Ellie Anderson, PhD, Co-host Podcast Overthink

The Problem with Empathy

I’ve sat in many workshops where stakeholders say, “We know our people.” What usually follows is a confident explanation of motivation problems, resistance, or mindset gaps, while the people being described are nowhere near the room. When I ask if we can talk to people or integrate them in the design process, the common answer is, “people don’t have time for this”. These are rarely bad intentions. Most people genuinely care. Sure, we can’t bring everyone to the table. And involving a few people doesn’t magically give you “the learner voice.” They bring their own biases and partial views. But there’s often no real way for those assumptions to be challenged.

Stein’s definition feels uncomfortable, because by her standard, much of what we call empathy in learning design isn’t empathy at all. If empathy requires the presence of another consciousness as other, then imagining learners, speaking on their behalf, or confidently stating “I know how they feel” is not empathy, it’s a substitution.

We observe, run interviews, fill out empathy maps or personas. Sometimes based on data, most times based on assumptions. All of this can create a feeling of closeness without real contact. What’s left is filtering it through our own assumptions: “We know our people”, “They struggle with motivation”, “This will really help them.” They allow decisions to move forward without encountering resistance, contradiction, or discomfort from the actual audience.

Power Dynamics

Here’s where power dynamics come into play. Some constraints are treated as non-negotiable: budget, compliance, leadership expectations. Others get reframed as “resistance,” “mindset issues,” or “lack of readiness.” Solutions move toward what sounds reasonable and aligned with organizational logic, not necessarily toward those who carry out the consequences of the design. When learning design operates on performative empathy the risk is ending up solving the wrong problems very well. Thoughtful interventions can still miss what actually shapes people’s day-to-day work. The cost shows up in disengagement and quiet resistance.

Looking for alternatives

So, the problem with empathy in learning design from this philosophical perspective is that we use it to do work it cannot do in this context. Empathy cannot justify speaking on behalf of others. At the same time, as the podcast hosts argue, saying “I will never understand anyway” can become another way out. If understanding is declared impossible, no further responsibility follows. In this case, empathy turns into a performance of humility, instead of a reason to question assumptions.

I’m starting to think that what learning design needs, instead of performative empathy, is a shift in focus to self-awareness, accountability, recognition, transparency, and process. That sounds like a lot, I know. I’m not suggesting we refuse projects where learners aren’t accessible or demand ethnographic budgets that don’t exist. I work within these constraints as well. What can change is how we design our processes once we’re honest about what’s missing. That might mean explicitly naming who is not in the room when decisions are made and asking what we can responsibly decide without their input, and what needs to stay open until we hear from them. In projects where direct audience involvement isn’t possible early on, we can build in moments later where assumptions are challenged through observation, pilots, and feedback that can change the design.

What it means in practice

And it means being aware of your own perspective and the position you’re speaking from. Instead of just letting stakeholders imagine being their audience, we can prompt reflection by asking questions like these: What role are we in right now and who’s not represented here? What are we assuming because it fits how things usually work? What are we deciding for others and what’s still open? We can highlight that we don’t need full understanding to act responsibly. We need the openness and willingness to be corrected.

After this cold shower, I’m left wondering: if empathy has any place in my practice, maybe it’s just as a reminder of its limits: there are other consciousnesses involved here, and they are not mine to simulate or speak for. What I can do is try to make their presence harder to ignore.

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