Listening Deeply in Museums

How can museums be more relevant to their communities? Collecting people’s opinions and preferences about the museum's current work will only help organizations optimize what they already do and know. We need to find a better way.

In this course, Indi Young offers an alternative that sheds light on how people make decisions about the goals that matter to them.

Course Overview

Listening is the foundation for inclusivity. Listening helps us cultivate a sense of belonging for diverse groups in our museums — whether those groups are visitors, members, or staff. Listening deeply is a method that can support external relations with the communities a museum wishes to support or internal development to bridge divides among staff. 

The techniques taught in this course help develop cognitive empathy. This foundational work supports their understanding of how people address their goals.

  • 46 videos (total time: 11.25 hours), demos and examples, reflection worksheets, and quizzes. Videos include closed captions and are recorded so that participants can listen to the videos with or without the screen.

  • Learn with other museum professionals. Live practice sessions “translate” course material to your museum context.

  • Get certified. Taking these courses through MaP will count toward Indi’s certification program and certification from MaP. Learn more about certification.

  • Access materials and practice sessions at a discounted rate. Indi’s courses cost $500 each (or $250 for those paying out of pocket), and practice sessions are sold separately. When you register through MaP, you’re able to take advantage of the special discount Indi has extended to MaP Community members.

  • Lifetime access. Course materials are hosted on the MaP Community website, so members can revisit them at any time. (You do not need to maintain a paid membership to access course content.)

Course sections and lessons

  • 1.1 Meaningful Direction
    1.2 Purpose Definition
    1.3 Thinking Styles Definition
    1.4 Preoccupied Listening
    1.5 Deep Listening
    1.6 Listening Deeply Frees You
    1.7 That Word “Listen”
    1.8 Assumptions or Empathy
    1.9 Topics, Concepts, Layers
    1.10 Interior Cognition
    1.11 Getting Past Expression

  • 2.1 Starting a Session
    2.2 The Germinal Questions
    2.3 How a Session Flows
    2.4 pull Tabs
    2.5 Ask: “What went through your mind?”
    2.6: Ask: More about that
    2.7 Ask: Fill in the Blank
    2.8 Ask: Reflection
    2.9 Ask: Why vs. Because
    2.10 Pin to a Place & Time
    2.11 Clarity: Find the Roots
    2.12 Clarity: Passive Into Active
    2.13 Avoid These Techniques

  • 3.1 Shifting Topics
    3.2 Instances of the Purpose
    3.3 Ending a Session
    3.4 Pay Rapt Attention After
    3.5 Safe Space & Trust
    3.6 Host a Safe Space: Recognize the Mood
    3.7 Host a Safe Space: Show You Are Listening
    3.8 Host a Safe Space: Avoid Judging
    3.9 Host a Safe Space: Bring Warm Personality
    3.10 Signals of Fading Safety
    3.11 Exit an Unsafe Session

  • 4.1 Self-Care
    4.2 Triggers & Thresholds
    4.3 Sensitive Contexts
    4.4 Fabrications & Lies
    4.5 Complaints & Objections
    4.6 Generalizations & Habits
    4.7 Derailing & Recovery
    4.8 Technical Difficulties
    4.9 Planting the Seed
    4.10 Preview: Data Synthesis
    4.11 Preview: Opportunity Maps

Who the course is for

This introductory course is for cultural professionals interested in developing their listening skills. The course is essential for those interested in taking subsequent courses, such as data synthesis, also offered through the Museums as Progress Community. However, since deep listening is broadly applicable and is critical to cultivating stronger relationships, this course can be taken by any museum professional interested in how progress-space understanding can support better outcomes in their workplace. Being able to listen for interior cognition is a vital tool for current and emerging leaders.

Listening Deeply is a foundational course. There are no prerequisites to participate.

Eligibility

This course is open to all cultural professionals. You’re welcome to register if you are:

  • employed by a nonprofit cultural institution (e.g., museum, historic site, aquarium, public garden)

  • a consultant or freelancer focused on supporting nonprofit cultural institutions (yes, independent museum professionals are welcome!)

  • a student or emerging museum professional

All others, including those who work at for-profit institutions, can register for this course through Indi Young’s website. If you’re not sure you are eligible to enroll, email community(at)museumprogress.com.

About the Instructor

Indi Young is a solution strategist who uses purpose-focused qualitative data science. She created her method over a 30-year span, and teaches that method in courses, coaching, workshops, books, talks, and through working with teams on research studies.

Indi’s method is focused on people, not users. She pioneered opportunity maps, which are mental model diagrams of people’s approach to a purpose aligned with the support a solution provides–or doesn’t. She helps teams map thinking styles with careful attention to resisting assumptions and representing the interior cognition of people in their own context. Teams can then measure the level of harm they cause to approaches that are outside the org’s assumptions.

Indi has written three books, Time to Listen, Practical Empathy and Mental Models. She is at work on another book in the series, Assumptions Aside, that will cover thinking styles.

Registration Options

Listening Deeply Course

✓ Access all course materials
✓ Participate in MaP Academy live practice sessions

$150

Course + Supporting Membership

Access the course and practice sessions, plus:

✓ $51 discount on the course ($99)
✓ 1 year of Supporting Membership to the MaP Community ($88/year, cancel anytime)

$187

Already a Supporting or Museum Member?

Use your code during checkout to get $51 off the course.

“There are so many transferable skills in this course. I think about Indi’s scaffolds, vocabulary, and tips often even though I’m not currently doing formal Listening Sessions as a form of data collection.”
— Sydney Chandler

Questions and answers

  • Videos, resources, and quizzes are all hosted on the MaP Community website. Once you’ve registered for the course, the course will be unlocked, and you’ll be able to access lessons here.

  • You can request a full refund for any course within 7 days of purchase. Email community(at)museumprogress.com.

  • Supporting Members are eligible for a discount on this course. You should have received a code that you can use to apply your discount. If you don’t have the code, please email community(at)museumprogress.com or send Kyle a DM.

  • Museum Members are eligible for a discount on this course. You should have received a code that you can use to apply your discount. If you don’t have the code, please email community(at)museumprogress.com or send Kyle a DM.

  • In addition to access to course videos and materials, registrants participate in live practice sessions in the Museums as Progress community. These sessions help translate course content to the context of museum work and help participants apply what they’ve learned to their museum practice. Live practice sessions are led by Kyle Bowen, who is certified in Indi’s methodology. We regularly host practice sessions for courses in the community (around 4 sessions each season). You can view upcoming events here.

Ask a question about this course

Email us: community(at)museumprogress.com