The recent discussions about the most effective form of education have highlighted a shift in emphasis from traditional college degrees to factors such as experience and demonstrated work ethic in many professional fields. Individuals with a growth mindset are finding success by breaking down barriers. In today's age, there is concern that schools, from elementary to Ivy League universities, are focusing more on social indoctrination rather than teaching crucial skills in mathematics, communication, and independent thinking. However, certain professions will always require specialized degrees, as seen with dentists, physicians, accountants, and other specialized professionals. Despite this, the need for education in value creation, people skills, and decision-making remains crucial, especially in the era of thriving entrepreneurship. Traditional MBA programs, while valuable, can be inaccessible due to the substantial time and financial investments they require.
Bjorn Billhardt and Nathan Kracklauer propose a solution to this challenge with their 12-week MBA program, introduced in their new book of the same title. Their company, Abilitie, draws on their experience creating Harvard's first interactive online simulations to offer leadership programs that have trained over 100,000 learners globally, including employees at esteemed companies like GE, Southwest, McKinsey, Pfizer, and Marriott. The 12-week MBA program is delivered online through webinars, workshops, and discussion groups, supplemented with self-study resources.
The Covid-19 pandemic necessitated a shift from traditional in-person adult training to virtual delivery methods. This shift revealed the viability of learning in new ways and emphasized the potential for effective virtual education, showcasing the adaptability and resilience of learning models in the face of unforeseen challenges.
“We experienced the Covid rupture less traumatically than many others in our field, simply because we had been delivering our programs online about 25% the time before the pandemic struck, and we had been perfecting them for that format,” Billhardt says. “What we experienced during Covid further validated what we already believed, namely that online learning can be highly effective if the learning methods enable active and collaborative participation. Active and collaborative participation improves the quality of an in-person workshop, and online they are essential.”
What is it about “traditional” MBA programs that don’t meet the needs of people aspiring to succeed in today’s business world?
“We don’t believe the traditional MBA is going away, and it will serve the needs of some,” Billhardt says. “But the opportunity cost and personal cost of two years, not to mention the financial burden, are daunting barriers for many people.”
This is a problem, Billhardt says, because people who aspire to succeed in business need business acumen and people management skills to do so. In fact, many are already in management positions. “They need shorter, less costly alternatives to the MBA (and the shorter but still expensive Executive MBA),” Billhardt says. “That’s why alternatives are needed that focus laser-like on the skill gaps that managers have, without spending time on industry- and function-specific topics that may not be relevant to someone’s current job or career.”
An important feature of a traditional MBA program is the opportunity to build relationships and network. So, how does the 12-week MBA fill that need?
“The network is one of the best value propositions for the traditional MBA,” Billhardt says. “It’s partly about the sheer time and partly about the physical co-presence, but it’s also about the crucible-like shared experience you have with a group of peers.”
Billhardt says that after the pandemic, people are more able and willing to have emotionally profound shared experiences in virtual spaces. “That’s why we have incorporated social learning into our 12-week MBA program and focus our energies not on the transfer of knowledge but on creating shared, crucible-like experiences. Learners play highly engaging team-based business simulations that are competitive, fun, social, and faculty-led.”
The program has had study groups that have organized frequent reunions, Billhardt says, plus “book clubs that have continued past the program, alumni who have started to mentor peers, and faculty who have hired alumni. Participants come to us years after an experience and proudly show us a screenshot of their team’s simulation performance that they still keep on their laptops,” he says. “That speaks to the emotional intensity of our approach, an intensity that helps our alumni form long-term bonds.”
Aside from the issue of time requirements, what advantages, you might ask, does the 12-week MBA have in terms of the way participants learn and apply the program contents?
It’s critical to a work group’s success, of course, to build and maintain trust. Nathan Kracklauer explains how that works in the 12-week MBA program.
“There are two main advantages that our program provides,” he says. “The first connects to the time, but its implications are broader: We distilled the traditional MBA to the topics we believe you will need immediately when you step into a managerial role. We performed that distillation not by trying to skim across all of its curricula superficially, but by going deep only where we believe it counts—business acumen and people leadership.”
Kracklauer says the distillation is the product of 20 years of working with major corporations like Dell and Coca-Cola, and seeing what gaps those companies observe as they try to find their leaders of tomorrow. “It’s also the product of running our own companies across 20 years and similarly wrestling with picking and developing our managers,” he says.
The second advantage, Kracklauer says, is their experiential learning methodology. “We don’t just teach concepts, we teach them by having learners apply them, essentially from the first moment, in collaborative and competitive business simulations led by faculty with real-world experience,” he says. “The simulations, as well as other collaborative projects, are not just powerful ways to learn and practice, they’re also opportunities to build relationships with your fellow learners.”
Billhardt and Kracklauer say people will be more effective managers if they come to terms with the power they do not have.
“Prior to having the experience of managing, you feel acutely the power a manager wields over you,” Billhardt says. “At the extreme, the manager has the power to decide whether you have a livelihood next week or not. Conversely, you take for granted the power you wield over your manager, the power to make their performance look good through the quality of your work. “
For most people, they know who make the transition into management—including themselves—it’s losing the power to get the job done themselves, being at the mercy of their team, that’s profoundly disorienting, even traumatic. They note that in the TV show The Office, the boss character Michael Scott is a caricature of someone experiencing that trauma, and who is unable to cope with it.
Kracklauer explains the steps to building and maintaining trust in a workgroup.
“The first thing to recognize is that we generally extend trust to each other out of the box,” he says. “Behavioral economics provides experimental evidence of something that is predicted by game theory, namely that it’s a winning strategy to behave as though we trust people from the start. Undoubtedly, we are biased in how much trust we extend to others based on what we know about them and if they are more or less like us. But by and large, we trust naturally.”
Krakauer says an interesting corollary is that people may be better served by framing their approach to trust around avoiding its erosion rather than around building it. “Simple and daily work-life interactions provide many opportunities to unintentionally erode trust, not through dramatic acts of betrayal,” he says, “but through failures of communication. We see simple approaches to mutually setting expectations well—things like taking the extra step of making sure the message you send someone is the same one they receive.”
Of course, open and honest communication is critical to any good relationship. So, what do Billhardt and Kracklauer see as the most important steps to giving—and receiving—feedback in the workplace?
“Open and honest communication is important to any relationship, yes, but giving feedback is not necessarily part of all relationships,” Kracklauer says. “A lot of what makes feedback work well—in the sense of both improving performance and strengthening the relationship—has to do with setting proper expectations about feedback before it’s shared. Expectations [should be clarified] about whether, why, when, and how it’s given, and what kinds of behavior change it should result in.”
Kracklauer says that when constructive criticism is offered within a well-framed set of mutually understood expectations, it can both improve the behavior and strengthen the relationship. “Even praise can fall flat or actually erode trust if it’s poorly framed and does not align with the rules agreed upon,” he says.
The authors write “As a leader, you can’t be a show horse. You have to be a workhorse with flair.” I invite them to explain.
“’ Leading’ means ‘going first,’” Billhardt says. “That includes being the first to make personal sacrifices that, if made by everyone, will result in higher rewards for all. Like working late to finish a key project or choosing not to lay executive claim to the most convenient parking spaces. But if you give that extra effort without anyone noticing, your efforts will have no inspirational impact.”
Kracklauer says leaders must lead by example and do the work, “but they also have to be visible in doing the work—a workhorse, but with a bit of flair.”
Billhardt and Kracklauer say management is a calling.
“The impact of direct managers is profound,” Billhardt says, “not just on their direct reports and on the organization, but also on the wider network linked to the organization. Great managers bring out not just their own best work, they ensure that it interconnects with the efforts of others to create truly awesome things collectively.”
Kracklauer points to the flipside. “Underprepared managers—most of whom have the best of intentions—send home emotionally drained breadwinners to their families every evening, and everyone feels that,” he says. “We hope more people step up to the challenge of management with confidence and humility, competence and compassion.”
That’s where the 12-week MBA, they say, is intended to help.