Satya Nadella’s First Lesson On Empathy

This is a personal story narrated by Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft. He was interviewing for a role at Microsoft, and one of the interviewers asked him, “imagine you were walking on a street and you saw a child fallen on the ground and crying; what would you do?”

Satya Nadella thought this was some psychological evaluation of his decision-making skills. So he took his time weighing all possible pros and cons and said- ” I would call 911.”

The interviewer kept quiet and walked out of the interview leaving Satya Nadella confused and wondering-“did I just blow the interview? And what was the right answer to the question?”

Satya Nadella went back to the interviewer and asked for the correct answer.

“When a child is hurt and crying, what you do is take her into your arms and hug her. That’s what you do first!!” said the gentleman.

And in that one sentence, Satya Nadella got his first lesson on empathy.