Her core curriculum propelled Louisa toward her goals. As you customize yours, keep your goals firmly in mind. If, like Louisa, you are an Entrepreneur, interested in working in a startup and/or starting your own venture, you will surely want to include a course on entrepreneurship in your early studies. If you are an Executive, looking to become a more effective manager, you will undoubtedly select one or two management courses. An Accelerator, seeking to amass technical skills, might want to include a more specialized subject such as data analysis, for example, or digital marketing among his or her foundational courses. Finally, if you see yourself as an Explorer, yearning to broaden your horizons and possibly make a big career change, then you should study as widely as you can, seeking out unfamiliar topics that will offer you a fresh perspective on the world of work.
The sample core curricula in Figure 3-2 can get you started. Of course, you will design your own curriculum to suit your particular goals and needs.
Figure 3-2. Sample Core Curricula
Use the template in Figure 3-3 to record your core curriculum for future reference.
Figure 3-3. My Core Curriculum
Quantitative and Financial Analysis topics:
Management and Leadership topics:
Big-Picture Thinking topics:
Choose Your First Courses
Now that you’ve selected the topics for your core curriculum, you want to zero in on your first set of courses. Search the major platforms or consult the list of suggested courses at the end of this book (Appendix A), and select a MOOC that corresponds to each topic you plan to study as you learn the language of business. Keep in mind that providers create new courses all the time. My list may be a helpful starting place, but you will also want to make sure you aren’t missing any gems that have come online since this book was written.
All of the online platforms listed here offer business courses. Each one also contains a search function; just type in a keyword (“marketing,” for example), then note the courses that pertain to your topic.
ACADEMIC MOOC PLATFORMS
Coursera.org—the biggest and best-known MOOC provider, with the best selection of business MOOCs
EdX.org—the second biggest MOOC provider, started as a nonprofit collaboration between Harvard and MIT, also with a good selection of business courses
NovoEd.org—beloved by many for its group-oriented courses, including many courses on entrepreneurship and the social sector
FutureLearn.com—includes a very good set of short, business-focused courses from British universities
Iversity.org—a European MOOC platform offering many courses in German and some offerings in English, particularly in entrepreneurship
MiriadaX.net—offering university courses, including business courses, in Spanish
Open2Study.com—an Australian platform offering free courses and accredited degrees from Open Universities Australia
OTHER LEARNING PLATFORMS
ALISON.com—free, skills-focused courses including certificates, on a platform that operates well even without a high-speed Internet connection
Canvas.net—offers a variety of free business courses, many on specialized topics
KhanAcademy.org—a free tutoring site aimed at high school and early college students, with some helpful materials on finance and economics
Learning.ly—platform managed by The Economist Group that sells courses by authors, academics, and industry experts
Lynda.com—fee-based courses on professional topics, often focused on specific skills
Udacity.com—one of the original MOOC platforms that now offers technology-focused “nanodegree” programs, with strong offerings in technology entrepreneurship
Udemy.com—offers a wide selection of courses taught by industry professionals, many focusing on concrete skills
Another way of finding courses is to browse a MOOC search engine. For example, Class Central (http://www.Class-Central.com) pulls together the offerings from many different platforms and in a variety of different languages. The site also hosts a ratings system, where students can leave reviews of courses they have taken. Dhawal Shah, the founder of Class Central, created the site after embarking on his own MOOC adventure. Upon completing a master’s degree in Computer Science from Georgia Tech, Dhawal was looking for ways to keep expanding his repertoire of skills and land a job with a Silicon Valley tech startup. He began his journey at the dawn of the MOOC era by enrolling in Introduction to AI. Amazed at the quality of instruction, Dhawal quickly became a MOOC enthusiast. Back then, he says, “Coursera hadn’t gotten the name Coursera, Udacity hadn’t gotten the name Udacity. These were just Stanford online courses, all on different websites. So I created a one-page site to track all of them.” Although it began as a side project that would demonstrate Dhawal’s programming skills, Class Central quickly took on a life of its own as more and more people used it to find and review online courses. As Dhawal’s skills increased, he greatly enhanced the functionality of the site. As of this writing, it had become the world’s number-one search engine for finding open courses.
As you select the business courses you will take, you can record them in a spreadsheet like the one in Figure 3-4.
At this point, you are ready to start studying! The Adviser’s Challenge in Figure 3-5 is your step-by-step guide to getting started on your first set of courses.
Figure 3-4. Business Courses That I Plan to Take
Figure 3-5
ADVISER’S CHALLENGE
ENROLL IN YOUR FIRST SET OF COURSES
Decide which course or courses to start with. Referring back to the list of business courses that you plan to take (Figure 3-4), select one to four courses you can confidently fit into your typical week. (Most people working full-time jobs can only handle one or two at a time.) Allow more time for courses involving math and problem sets.
Register for your first courses. Click onto the platform that hosts each course in your initial lineup and complete the enrollment requirements. Note that some courses might not be available on-demand, in which case you may need to adjust your plan.
Familiarize yourself with course navigation. Search for the discussion forum and the location of each week’s lectures and other assignments.
Consult each course syllabus and take note of deadlines. Make a timeline that contains important milestones.
Mark study times and assignments on your calendar. You have already determined when your best study times are. Now match the modules and assignments in your first courses to those study times.
Update your accountability partner. Let the people who are following your education know that you have registered for your first set of courses.
Complete the introductory module of one or more courses. Get ready, get set, go!
Immerse Yourself in the Language and Culture of Business
When choosing your courses, you need not limit yourself to my suggestions, or even to academic MOOCs. Your self-made MBA can include books and videos and even an occasional class at a brick-and-mortar school. For example, Michael, the English major who needed to go “back to school” to acquire the business language he needed to succeed in book publishing, asked his boss for a list of books that would provide a good starting point. He read Peter Drucker’s The Effective Executive and Douglas McGregor’s The Human Side of Business. When he became a business book editor, he learned a lot from the manuscripts he read. He also picked the brains of the professors he met on the job. “Today, I’d take several MOOCS,” he says. “And I’d look for relevant YouTube videos. I would still find a mentor, like my old boss, who could advise me on ways I could immerse myself in the culture of business.”
In addition to taking courses in accounting, finance, marketing, and other fields, you should look for non-classroom sources of knowledge. Suppose you wanted to learn to speak French. You could take four years of language classes in college, but nothing would help you become more fluent than living for a year in Paris. A new language doe
s not just involve words and phrases; it functions within the context of a culture. You’re not learning the language of business for the fun of it but to apply it in a real-world business setting.
When I joined the Peace Corps in 2009, I already spoke fluent Spanish, so I requested an assignment where I could exercise that skill. Nicaragua fit the bill perfectly. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that my textbook knowledge of Spanish had not prepared me to interact fluently with the people I met. Oh, I had practiced my skills in short study programs in Mexico and Ecuador. However, my new job required me not just to interact with college students and urban professionals, but also to form relationships with rural farming families whose vocabularies were filled with colorful local words and phrases, many of which were used only in Nicaragua. I learned the local words for the corner stores ubiquitous in rural communities, for seasonal foods, and for hair colors and textures and body types. I learned the names of Nicaragua’s celebrities, political figures, and pop stars, as well as slang words and old sayings. I learned over a dozen words just for talking about corn: a word for the first tiny ears you could boil in a soup; a word for the special tortillas made from fresh, as opposed to dried, corn (a national favorite); another for the corn you could grill over a fire and eat from the cob; and yet another for the baked corn cookies made with farmer’s cheese and served with sweet, strong coffee.
You see my point. You can memorize all the business terms in the world, but until you immerse yourself in the hustle and bustle of the business world, you cannot claim full fluency in the language. What does the word “disruption” mean to you? It means something very specific in business. The same with “pivot.” And that’s before you come to A/B testing, B2B, and B2C; funnels, personas, conversions, use cases, business models, and many other words you have heard and used many times but may mean something quite different to a business professional.
To increase your fluency in business lingo, watch a few minutes of Bloomberg Television each morning, or, as Michael did, pick the brains of colleagues and superiors at work. Incorporate business-focused media (websites, magazines, television programs, podcasts) into your reading, watching, and listening routines. To get started, choose three media outlets or publications to support your ongoing education. This could include newspapers such as the Financial Times or Wall Street Journal; magazines such as Fortune, Forbes, or Business Insider; or podcasts such as Marketplace from American Public Media or How to Start a Startup from the well-known business incubator Y Combinator. Whatever sources you use, make business language study a daily habit.
Finally, remember that industries and organizations build their own unique cultures, “the way we do things around here.” When you use industry- and organization-specific vocabulary, you go a long way toward establishing yourself as an insider. That’s important to keep in mind, particularly if you foresee a career change on your horizon. But you don’t need to have worked at McKinsey to be able to use the vocabulary of management consulting. You simply need to find ways to expose yourself to the words and phrases in common usage in the industry, or all the different ways the companies on your short list refer to “corn.”
This Adviser’s Challenge will help ensure that you surround yourself with the language and culture of business.
Figure 3-6
ADVISER’S CHALLENGE
ACHIEVE FLUENCY IN THE LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS
Set up an on-the-job language lab. Make a conscious attempt to find out more about the language used by managers and leaders in their daily work.
Subscribe to one or two business publications. Include print or digital versions of such publications as Fortune or The Wall Street Journal.
Look for YouTube videos and other audio or video business media. Enter a term like “leadership” into the YouTube search bar and you will come up with thousands of offerings.
Start a dictionary of business terminology. Whenever you see or hear a word you cannot precisely define, look it up and write it down.
Install an app such as Pocket (http://getpocket.com) on your computer browser or mobile device. Pocket and other apps allow you to save reading material and other digital media in a queue for reading/watching/listening at a later time.
Turn it into a game. Instead of just sitting back and enjoying a television program or movie where business figures into the plot, listen for new words you can add to your dictionary.
Congratulations on selecting your core curriculum, setting up your first class schedule, and immersing yourself in business language and culture. Next, we will get to the heart of your business education—how to build your business skills.
POINTS TO REMEMBER
1.Browse the world of MOOCs to see that they duplicate all of the courses offered in traditional MBA programs.
2.Structure your business education atop a solid foundation of core business concepts.
3.Make sure you delve into the three major categories included in any business curriculum: Quantitative and Financial Analysis, Management and Leadership, and Big-Picture Thinking.
4.Set up your core curriculum with four to six subjects drawn from all three of the major categories.
5.Construct your first class schedule by visiting the major MOOC platforms or using a search engine like Class Central.
6.Increase your exposure to business concepts, vocabulary, and companies by adding magazines, news shows, online publications, podcasts, and other business-focused media to your daily routines.
4
Sharpen Your Skills
Assembling Your Business Toolkit
ANDY loved working in the botanical production lab at Bio-dyne. His job as senior scientist in charge of preparing seedlings for commercial farms had turned his lifelong passion for biology into a successful career. Every day brought exciting new challenges that kept his creative juices flowing. His bosses trusted and respected him, often asking for his input on business-related topics far afield from biology. Andy wished he could answer those questions as accurately as ones involving his professional expertise. Then he discovered the No-Pay MBA blog. Problem solved, he thought, I’ll get just what I need from a few online courses. After taking several MOOCs that gave him a firm foundation in the language of business, he moved on to skill-based courses. The experience thrilled the scientist in Andy, especially when he delved into the subject of negotiation. While taking a course on Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skills, he learned that a strong negotiator acts a lot like a good scientist, examining a problem or situation from multiple perspectives and then running through mental scenarios before taking action.
As he watched the course’s video lectures, Andy found himself thinking about MaxFarm, a chemical supplier whose negotiation tactics had earned the company a reputation within the industry. MaxFarm’s monopoly on certain key compounds enabled it to play hardball. Several years ago, Andy’s boss Marty, frustrated by MaxFarm’s “take it or leave it” approach, had halted all discussions with the supplier. Andy wondered if the negotiation skills he had been studying might make it possible to reach an agreement with MaxFarm that would allow Biodyne to reopen the relationship. After all, having access to MaxFarm’s chemical compounds would allow Biodyne to develop much-needed new products.
Before approaching Marty for a green light, Andy sketched out three perspectives on the situation: his own view as the scientist running the Biodyne lab, MaxFarm’s position as the supplier of an essential ingredient, and his boss’s point-of-view as the Biodyne executive who had cut ties with MaxFarm. Andy considered what each party stood to gain or lose. After examining the situation from all three perspectives, Andy thought he might have zeroed in on a potential “ZOPA,” a zone of possible agreement, where all of the parties could walk away satisfied. In the morning, he took the argument to his boss.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said in our last staff meeting about expanding our market,” Andy began. “And I have a couple of ideas.” Andy had learned the importance o
f leading off the conversation in a way that respected Marty’s interest.
Marty’s expression instantly brightened. “Oh yeah? I’m all ears.”
Andy continued on a positive note, emphasizing the value of being able to develop new products. Finally, Marty green-lighted the initiative, on the condition that Andy spearheaded the negotiations. After inviting MaxFarm back to the negotiating table, Andy managed, after few tough rounds of talks, to reestablish a relationship that ended up allowing Biodyne to launch several new product lines.
Once you have learned the language of business by studying the core curriculum, you’ll want to roll up your sleeves and start building specific business skills. Like Andy, you may find that some subjects inspire you more than others. Some you can immediately put to work on the job; others you will store in your business skills toolbox for later use.
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