1. Listening Deeply
About this course
Start date: please check later for next Live Course date
Summary
Listening deeply is a powerful skill. Most people don’t realize they are listening at the surface, so the experience doesn’t seem to shift anything. This course teaches depth. (The classes in this course are each 2.5 hours long.)
Do you know how to get past the surface to listen at depth?
Listening has so many applications: developing relationships, forming rapport, connecting with people, seeing new perspectives. While these may sound too mystical to apply in your org, any hope of improving support for people, teamwork, or leadership is rooted in being able to shape relationships. Listening is the foundation for inclusivity, new market opportunities, and powerful team efficiency. I make sure professionals have the skills to wield the empathetic mindset when they are feeling confronted by someone who has different values. If a professional has the awareness to recognize then they are reacting, judging, or being triggered, they can hit the mental pause button and decide what to do next.
The empathetic mindset does not mean you have to feel warmth for another person. The words “understand” and “comprehend” do not mean “adopt” or “agree with.”
It may seem counter-intuitive to take time to listen when you want to solve, but it’s foundational. In product & service design, listening deeply allows you to learn other people’s thinking and approaches to the purposes your organization intends to support. It is the path to discovering whole new markets and opportunities. To this point, listening deeply is the way to create a mental model diagram or thinking styles. These let you consider how well you are helping people achieve their purpose using an approach matched to them. Listening is the key.
You will learn how to:
- Identify the ways you already listen
- Discern surface from depth when you are listening
- Start a listening session & recognize when it’s over
- Develop rapport & trust with the speaker
- Get past the surface to depth
- Prepare for formal research studies
- Deal with uncooperative or aggressive speakers
Homework:
Expect homework to take about one hour a week. (Some people invest less time or more time, depending on their context.)
- Homework #1: Build your awareness of how you currently listen in real work and life. Practice paying rapt attention.
- Homework #2: Connect a person’s purpose to the reason for listening. Start a listening session based on a purpose.
- Homework #3: Run at least one formal listening session. Develop rapport & trust, get the speaker to go deep, recognize when it goes out of scope, and recognize when the session is “done.”
Who is this for?
If you are a researcher, a listening session is very different than an interview. Learn how to let the participant direct the conversation and how to encourage the participant to uncover a trio of concept types that provide the richness of understanding you need in your data.
If you are a leader or team member, listening deeply is how you build relationships, giving other people the gift of feeling heard. By understanding their guiding principles, you are able to collaborate more effectively, with less strife and misunderstanding.
This course is a thorough review of the components of listening. It will change your life!
Recommended reading
- Chapter 4 in Practical Empathy
- Essay – Tour Guide – An Analogy for Listening
- Essay – When You Listen, What Are You Thinking?
- Essay – Listening Deeply
- Essay – Eavesdropping
- Essay – Surprise Differences
- Podcast – A Session On Empathy, Cognitive Bias, & Listening in an Overstimulated World on WeGetRealAF
- Presentation Closing Keynote – Paying Better Attention to the Problem at Design for Digital
- Presentation – Enabling Empathy at Creative Mornings
- Book – Listening Well by William Miller (a therapy perspective)
- Book – Realizing Empathy by Seung Chan Lim
- Book – How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen by Joanna Faber and Julie King
How does it work?
Duration
4 classes of 2 hours each. The live version of a course takes about four weeks to complete.
Time Zones
Live courses are taught Wed 10:30am or Friday 5:30pm San Francisco time. here are two helpful tools: 1. Time zone converter 2. Explore your time zone
Homework Review
Students who enroll for the live version of the courses will have Indi review their homework.
Pricing
Several pricing tiers aim to support different budgets and currency rates.
Enrollment options
3 enrollment options give you the choice as to how to complete the course.
Previous start dates
28-Oct-20;31-Jul-19;10-Oct-18;6-Jun-18
More courses
Price & Enrollment Options
For each course you can enroll in one of these three ways
Live Online Classes
Join a class of 25 or less participants, from around the globe. Classes are taught online live by Indi.
- Live discussions & questions during classes
- Choice of two class periods per week (Group A or Group B)
- Partner for homework with others in your Group
- Homework review of your work by Indi & assistant
- Membership in Slack community
- Access to recordings of the course
- Recordings accessible for 3 months
- Letter of Completion available
- Counts toward problem space certification program
Individual
Team
If you have a team attending from one organization:
3 people ~15% | $660 each ($1980 total) |
4 people ~20% | $621 each ($2484 total) |
5 people ~25% | $582 each ($2910 total) |
6-10 people ~30% | $543 each |
11-15 people ~35% | $504 each |
16+ people ~40% | $466 each |
Follow-along Option
If you cannot attend class, but still want to follow along with the latest course as it is taught, this is a great option for you.
- Partner for homework with others who are also following-along
- Some cheat sheets for self-review of homework
- Membership in Slack community
- Access to recordings of the currently underway live course
- Recordings accessible for 6 weeks (motivation to finish!)
- No letter of completion available
- Does not count toward the problem space certification program
Individual
Archived Access
If the course you are interested in is not coming up soon enough, consider the archived recording.
- Last year’s course recordings
- Some cheat sheets for self-review of homework
- Membership in Slack community
- Recordings accessible for 6 months
- No letter of completion available
- Does not count toward the problem space certification program
Individual
Pricing Level Details
Regular – When your organization will cover the cost, e.g. your boss is paying
Government/Military/Non-profit – When a government, military, or non-profit organization is covering your education cost
Out-of-Pocket – When you will NOT be reimbursed for the cost by anyone; also use this if you are a member of a union and your boss is not paying
Extreme Currency Exchange – Not in the US? When your your purchasing power is at an extreme disadvantage with the US dollar, we have much bigger discounts. We want to include folks in Brazil, India, Ukraine, Russia, Malaysia, etc.
Refund Policy
Refunds are possible up until 2 days prior to your course start date.