The 12-Week MBA: A New Approach to Remote Leadership Training with Nathan Kracklauer

00;00;07;26 - 00;00;37;26
Wayne Turmel
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Long Distance Worklife for podcast dedicated to remote hybrid working, thriving, surviving wherever you happen to be trying to get your work done. My name is Wayne Turmel. I am super excited to be here today. This is a sans-Marisa episode, which means we have a very, learned, exciting, cool guest that I'm excited for you to see.

00;00;37;27 - 00;00;50;01
Wayne Turmel
And we're going to bring him in right now. Nathan Kracklauer who is in Germany somewhere? welcome to the long-distance worklife.

00;00;50;04 - 00;00;52;28
Nathan Kracklauer
Yeah. Thank you. Wayne, it's a pleasure being here.

00;00;53;00 - 00;00;56;13
Wayne Turmel
So who are you and why do we care?

00;00;56;15 - 00;01;22;11
Nathan Kracklauer
well, I am the chief research officer of a company called ability. And ability does management leadership training. through a methodology called experiential learning and specifically through business simulations. And we have a, a solution that is what we call a mini MBA. We call it the 12 week MBA, about which I have just written a book along with our CEO.

00;01;22;13 - 00;01;44;02
Nathan Kracklauer
And, it's an online learning experience, which I think is what many of your listeners will be interested in to see, you know, what are the approaches you can take to learning, to, how to learn about management related topics online, but also maybe what management related topics are different, when you're working online?

00;01;44;04 - 00;02;12;00
Wayne Turmel
Well, yeah. I mean, let's let's start with the idea of the kind of do it yourself structured finding stuff where you can way of educating yourself. a lot of our listeners know I don't have a formal college degree, certainly not an MBA. And yet here I am, right. so I am passionate about self-development and learning and taking it on yourself.

00;02;12;02 - 00;02;27;19
Wayne Turmel
How does the kind of traditional MBA experience, but up against remote and hybrid work and the way that we're working now in whatever part of the 21st century this is?

00;02;27;22 - 00;02;52;26
Nathan Kracklauer
Yeah, I mean, that's I think that's one of the core questions, I think for many years, just having, the traditional MBA to work with as an option has limited very many people from gaining the kinds of management, not experienced, but the access to the skills, the knowledge and the insights and the mindsets, even though they would, like you said for yourself, have ample opportunities to have to use them in the real world that they were facing.

00;02;52;26 - 00;03;16;11
Nathan Kracklauer
Right. And the challenge, I guess, of the traditional MBA is it makes you take off, you know, 1 to 2 years out of the workforce. And that is a huge cost, both personal. because, you know, that's two years out of your life. and it's a financial as well, but it's also the opportunity of cost of not continuing to develop your personal network in a, in an industry and in a company.

00;03;16;11 - 00;03;37;26
Nathan Kracklauer
It's you're not developing your knowledge of that industry and your skills specific to that industry in that company. And so for many people, it hasn't really been been an option or an attractive option. and yet we all know that when you make that transition from being an individual contributor to being a manager, you need some kind of support.

00;03;37;28 - 00;03;41;23
Nathan Kracklauer
it's an entirely different universe. On the other side of that threshold.

00;03;41;25 - 00;04;01;19
Wayne Turmel
So what are the things? What are the things specifically? call them topics or subject matters. Just because we got to call them something. Where are the areas of learning that, particularly when it comes to remote work, people are most in need of.

00;04;01;22 - 00;04;29;02
Nathan Kracklauer
Yeah. So, in our program, we focus on two areas. And with respect to remote learning and the challenge, excuse me, the remote working and the challenges thereof. it's really the second topic that is, I think, the one that stands in the, in our focus, which is how we work with people, and in truth, few of our formal, learning opportunities, certainly throughout, school and throughout college and even throughout the MBA, they don't focus enough on that.

00;04;29;02 - 00;04;51;19
Nathan Kracklauer
And yet, what we need to know about how to work alongside others and through others as a manager, is all the more urgent in that remote setting? and I think the first principle, again, in any kind of relationship, in any kind of working relationship, is the principle of working in a trusting relationship, finding, trust.

00;04;51;19 - 00;05;19;00
Nathan Kracklauer
But it's all the more important online, working remotely, as I have experienced myself. because there are so few opportunities to do the kinds of care and feeding of relationships that sort of are natural and built into how we, have been sort of built to work together over millennia, and over our entire evolutionary history.

00;05;19;00 - 00;05;27;14
Nathan Kracklauer
So we're kind of separated from each other when we work remotely. And a lot of the ways that we build trust are just simply not there. So we have to find ways to replicate them online.

00;05;27;17 - 00;05;54;01
Wayne Turmel
So one of the things that I have certainly dealt with in my own career, and the people who take advantage of your program or those just building their own right, is so many of us have done is at least if you go to Wharton or even University of Phenix or something, where there is a name that says, yes, you have completed this.

00;05;54;03 - 00;06;25;18
Wayne Turmel
If you're going to develop yourself, how do you do that in a way that is credible to the people who are going to care, right. People in your organization who promote you, who want to know that you've actually studied this stuff, you can't just say, oh yeah, I read all these book and took all these online courses. How do you actually build a credible resume with the outside world when you're doing it piecemeal, bit by bit, on your own?

00;06;25;20 - 00;06;56;16
Nathan Kracklauer
Yeah, that is truly the challenge. And, I think from an employer perspective, it's quite interesting. I see you and I were talking about this, just the other day about his experience, that he had recently speaking to somebody on the employer's side who also questioned whether the amount of time and money you spent on an MBA, for those who have done that actually bodes well for your decision making prowess and your financial investment making prowess in the real world, so that could actually go in the opposite direction.

00;06;56;16 - 00;07;21;03
Nathan Kracklauer
But I think what employers do value is the fact that you are making those efforts, because not everybody does. So if you can say, look, I actually went to this course and it was concluded, now we have to, of course, providers like ourselves have to provide something that says, yes, it was completed according to the completion criteria we have so that you can legitimately post that on your LinkedIn resume, your LinkedIn profile, or on your resume.

00;07;21;06 - 00;07;56;25
Nathan Kracklauer
but, the signal that you are doing that, that you are spending money, but more importantly, your time to develop yourself indicates something to employers. And that may actually be, appreciated if it's at smaller and incremental skills and in specific targeted areas than if it's this general, traditional two year MBA that's highly expensive, and the content might not be as focused on the specific tasks that you are trying to that you're currently doing, or that you're trying to, apply for in your next job in the next step up.

00;07;56;27 - 00;08;30;11
Wayne Turmel
Which I think for those listening kind of raises an important point. And while I'm not, you know, I don't encourage busy work and kind of covering your butt with tons of paperwork you need evidence of having done these things, even if it's just a certificate from the provider or something to say that you have completed this program or gotten this grade on the program or however it works, you got to have that evidence.

00;08;30;14 - 00;08;58;05
Nathan Kracklauer
Yeah, exactly. And and one of the ways that, I mean, we're, experimenting with this is I think many programs are, something we introduced, just in the last cohort that we, we had for our program, was to have the option to have closing interviews, so to speak, with some of our facilitators. And, so our faculty and, what that allowed the participants to do was, share.

00;08;58;07 - 00;09;21;25
Nathan Kracklauer
I mean, it wasn't it wasn't like an oral examination, but they could they had some questions that they could prepare and then have a conversation. Really. with the faculty member that went back and forth. So how does this apply to you in this concept that you talked about? How does this apply to your particular position? And, you know, how could it maybe how could it apply in your next position in having more of a, a conversation around some of the core topics?

00;09;21;25 - 00;09;44;12
Nathan Kracklauer
But what that also allowed for is the participant to feel quite confident that they had truly understood the concepts it was had that character of an examination without feeling like it to, you know, provide validation of the concepts. And what it then allowed us to do is to say, you know what? As part of that, you know, if you apply to your job, will will also, you know, write a recommendation for you on that basis.

00;09;44;12 - 00;10;00;25
Nathan Kracklauer
So there are ways, I think, that these online programs like ours are experimenting with to provide exactly that sort of evidence in ways that are also even relevant, maybe more relevant than just having a stamp of approval on on a resume or a badge on a, on a LinkedIn charter.

00;10;00;27 - 00;10;29;15
Wayne Turmel
Yeah. You said something earlier that I want to get back to, which is the notion of learning in cohorts. there's kind of this notion that especially if you are a remote worker and, you know, you're out in the provinces somewhere, wherever you happen to be, that you're kind of on your own to do this. certainly a lot of what I did back in the day was me and a book and a course and an online thing.

00;10;29;18 - 00;10;35;10
Wayne Turmel
But talk to me about learning in cohorts and what that means.

00;10;35;12 - 00;10;53;19
Nathan Kracklauer
right. Yeah. So, I think that's new terminology that is coming along, but I what it gets to is that learning is inherently also a social activity. And when you think about it, what we get out of our peers is not just that we can learn from each other, although that's a big part of it. Right?

00;10;53;19 - 00;11;11;25
Nathan Kracklauer
We'll have complementary experiences. but if we could put together with a group of other peers and have, avenues for interacting with each other, we will teach each other things. but we'll also be using each other as benchmarks, really? We'll say, I'm finding this very hard if we if we do that on our own.

00;11;11;25 - 00;11;36;25
Nathan Kracklauer
Right. If we're all in our lonesome, reading a book we don't know is the problem with me. Or is this book maybe not written well, or is this concept not one that's even relevant to me? We just don't know these things. If you go into a group of peers and you find I'm having a hard time with this, but then I discover everybody else is too, that actually is a very relieving experience, that can help us be motivated to actually dive a little bit deeper and put in the extra effort.

00;11;36;27 - 00;11;59;08
Nathan Kracklauer
Or conversely, we find that everybody else already understands it, then that might raise some anxiety, but that also means it's time for us to up our game, because everybody else gets this concept. I better get it too. So there are many different ways that we reinforce each other's motivation and learning when we work together in groups or cohorts, as is the fashionable word now.

00;11;59;10 - 00;12;35;29
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, I mean, there is something to be said for learning with other people. And, you know, we spend a lot of time when we work remotely and we work in our own heads going, maybe it's just me and this, this notion that it's yeah, it's probably not. Yeah, right. And where it is, you clearly you need to step up your game, but where you realize, oh, it's not just me or a lot of times I'll find that a colleague or somebody else has a way of explaining it that maybe is clearer than what the instructor is telling me.

00;12;36;02 - 00;13;11;01
Wayne Turmel
Yeah, right. It's a way of picking it up that way. So what's the balance of alone work? And I know we're talking about your program in particular, and there are other companies out there, you know, no big shock. There are other companies doing kind of the same thing. And certainly you can self-organize a lot of stuff. But, you know, just in your, company's experience, what's the balance of head down alone work versus synchronous with other people versus asynchronous with other people?

00;13;11;04 - 00;13;35;15
Nathan Kracklauer
Yeah. I yeah, trying to run the numbers in my head now, but I think it's going to be on the scale of two thirds, three quarters, actually in synchronous activities for us. And I think that's really important, especially when it's online. Now, the reason that we can do that is that our particular methodology, I mean, one way to do this right would be, hey, you come to a synchronous event where there's an instructor and maybe they're able to get the discussion going on a zoom call with breakouts.

00;13;35;15 - 00;13;56;15
Nathan Kracklauer
And there's some of that too. but then that the, the classic way of doing this is then you go and you work on something on your own, an exercise or problem set or whatever, whatever it is, you maybe write a little paper delivery. That's sort of the classic way of doing things where a lot of the application is what you do on your own, and then the information gathering is what you do in the classroom.

00;13;56;22 - 00;14;26;15
Nathan Kracklauer
What we do is we have these business simulations that are platforms are actually applying the concepts directly, and we're in one synchronous experience, along with our colleagues and with a faculty member going through cycles of experiencing the actual content by making decisions, running a virtual business along with their colleagues, and then going back and cycling back into a discussion with the instructor about, okay, what does this mean?

00;14;26;20 - 00;14;54;27
Nathan Kracklauer
What does this mean in the real world? Here's some new tips and ideas, new concepts, maybe on business acumen. maybe on on, how to build trust, maybe on how to work together in teams. And now with those new inputs, let's go back into the next cycle and start applying them. So in that way, what we have is a, experience that is fundamentally built on the synchronous and where the, the, asynchronous components and the self-study components are somewhat ancillary to that.

00;14;54;29 - 00;15;26;12
Wayne Turmel
One of the things that I find fascinating is, and the more I do this podcast, the more I realize, you know, I'm a Canadian living in the States, talking to people wherever. And, and and that has just boggled my brain for years, right. That the world is that small. you are living in Germany right now. How does the rest of the world look at these kind of incremental, less formal ways of learning?

00;15;26;12 - 00;15;38;07
Wayne Turmel
Do German companies offer more or less credibility to those? Are they still kind of hidebound to the traditional university approach? What's the rest of the world doing about this?

00;15;38;10 - 00;16;06;08
Nathan Kracklauer
It's yeah, it's really, of course, quite complicated because first of all, I don't know most of the rest of the world. I do know Europe fairly well. And there's divides north, south, east, west and all that. that make that, answer quite complex to answer, just for example, I think you find, that in, in traditionally the Latin based cultures of southern Europe, the role of the teacher, the instructor is quite different.

00;16;06;10 - 00;16;30;29
Nathan Kracklauer
the instructor, the expectation coming from learners is that that person be, more of an authority figure, whereas in northern Europe you would now have. No, no, we're all peers here, including the faculty member. And so that drives a whole different I mean, that's part of this, but, that's just one of the major phenomena that overlays the cultural differences.

00;16;30;29 - 00;17;10;07
Nathan Kracklauer
That alone makes up for quite significant differences, I would say, between any given area in Europe and the US. And I know it's quite there are many similar dynamics in play also, all around the world. I've worked quite a bit in Asia. Also, I think in terms of the acceptance and credibility of these things, I do think the US, is moving somewhat more quickly on that, that, the idea of do it yourself and, less formal training and alternatives to, to traditional methods, I think there's more of a willingness to pioneer that, in the US and I don't mean pioneered from the state of, point of

00;17;10;07 - 00;17;34;17
Nathan Kracklauer
view of the provider, but pioneer it as actual user thereof, as somebody willing to try these things out. by and large, I think the acceptance is somewhat higher in the US, but at the same time, I want to qualify with that, with saying that many of the, areas around the world, that have not had access to, let's say, the traditional forms of education are also now quite willing to pioneer that and are hungry for it.

00;17;34;19 - 00;18;05;19
Nathan Kracklauer
so I have personally not had many opportunities to travel to Africa, for instance. But I know that we have actually many participants in our open enrollment programs coming from Africa through partnerships, in, in that broad region, very large region, continent, and that, actually are quite interested in using these alternatives because they are more accessible in, in time, accessible in terms of the financial resources required and so on.

00;18;05;21 - 00;18;39;01
Wayne Turmel
While I've got about ten more questions that I want to ask and not nearly enough time. Nathan Kracklauer from ability. If you are interested in learning more about their programs, if you're interested in learning more about Nathan, we will have all of those links and other good stuff on our website. Long distance work life.com, along with a transcript of this, conversation so that if you missed some of the good stuff that we talked about or didn't get the notes right, they are there for you.

00;18;39;04 - 00;18;46;00
Wayne Turmel
Nathan, thank you so much for being with us, man. I really appreciate your time today. It's been a good conversation.

00;18;46;02 - 00;18;50;22
Nathan Kracklauer
Thank you. And it has been and I look forward to speaking with you again.

00;18;50;24 - 00;19;22;08
Wayne Turmel
Alrighty. So we are wrapping it up. as I say, you can always find, transcripts, links, information on this or any of our conversations at Long Distance Work life.com. I would also urge you, if you are interested in learning more about leading remote hybrid teams. Nathan mentioned public programs. Certainly ability has public programs that anyone in the world can register for, as do we.

00;19;22;08 - 00;19;51;18
Wayne Turmel
The long distance leadership series is an important part of what we do. You can visit Kevineikenberry.com/LDLS which stands for Long Distance Leadership series. And as always you can reach out to myself or Marisa. Questions comments, vicious personal attacks. Anything that you would like to share with us. We are at your service. You can email us or connect through LinkedIn or our LinkedIn page for this show.

00;19;51;18 - 00;20;13;04
Wayne Turmel
For the long distance work life. That's it! Thank you so much. You all know how podcasts work. Please like and subscribe. We hope that if this is your first time with us, you see it. Check out the other episodes and if you are a long time listener, thank you, thank you and be part of the community. Be part of the conversation.

00;20;13;04 - 00;20;28;04
Wayne Turmel
We want to bring you off that you want to know about. So that's it. I am you know, pretty much done with you for the day. Go to. My name is Wayne Turmel. Don't let the weasels get you down.

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