Sarah (00:08)
Welcome to Undubbed, the podcast that's unscripted, uncensored and undeniably data. I'm Sarah.
Fiona (00:14)
And I'm Fiona, you know that analyst who's technically brilliant but never speaks in meetings?
Sarah (00:21)
Yeah, the one who builds a perfect dashboard and then says absolutely nothing about it.
Fiona (00:28)
That's the one. Today's episode is about that person. Because here's the thing, confidence isn't a personality trait.
Sarah (00:36)
It's an environment. And our guest today has spent two decades proving it.
Fiona (00:44)
We're talking to Andy Kriebel Tableau Visionary Hall of Famer, one of DataIQ's top 100 most influential people in data, and the founder of Next Level Tableau.
Sarah (00:57)
If you've spent any time in the Tableau community, you've probably bumped into Andy's work. His Tableau public profile has over 1400 visualizations that have been viewed more than 12 million times. 12 million times.
Fiona (00:55)
Deblo.
And aside from being our own trainer, here's what really caught our attention. 10 of Andy's trainees have become Tableau Visionaries themselves. That's 10 out of only 72 people worldwide who hold that distinction.
Sarah (01:31)
So Andy isn't just good at Tableau, he's good at building people who are good at Tableau.
Fiona (01:38)
and his stated goal to make you so good at tableau that you don't need him anymore.
Sarah (01:44)
which is either the worst business model ever or the most honest one.
Fiona (01:49)
So today we're diving into how Andy builds confident analysts inside Next Level Tableau. And that's not talking about confidence on the tools, because he definitely does that. It's more about people who ask questions, explain their work, give feedback and move fast. Because Andy's ways of working for sure help out any leader to build great teams.
Sarah (02:15)
Before we dive in, remember to like and subscribe to Undubbed. Most importantly, please share this episode with your data teams and anyone trying to build confident analysts.
Fiona (02:29)
Andy Kriebel, welcome back to Undubbed!
Andy Kriebel (02:32)
It's wonderful to be back. Thank you for inviting me again. I'm quite surprised.
Fiona (02:36)
you
Sarah (02:36)
Yeah, think we were talking
about today, you were our 15th episode and now you're our 34th episode. So very exciting.
Fiona (02:45)
Hmm.
Andy Kriebel (02:46)
Well done. Congrats on getting that
Fiona (02:47)
Very exciting.
Andy Kriebel (02:48)
far and people still listening. I didn't make it nearly that far. I gave up. β
Fiona (02:50)
Maybe.
Sarah (02:57)
So Andy, can you give us the quick version on what next level Tableau is and what problem you are actually trying to solve when you built it?
Andy Kriebel (03:07)
Yeah, there's a couple of things. I guess the idea sort of started ages ago. Fi was one of the people that kind of said this to me was, how can I join the data school but not move to London and take a really huge salary decrease? So that sort of planted the seed. Gosh, Fi that would have been years ago that you would have said that to me. And the data school grew around the world.
And grew in London in particular, we added two, three cohorts at a time. And what that meant was that I had to, I felt like as a leader, I had to give other people opportunities to teach, right? That's the only way they're going to develop their skills. I couldn't teach all the cohorts, right? And I ended up not really enjoying my job that much anymore. I felt very kind of like complacent and that's not really the kind of person I am.
So what I loved the most about my job was the teaching and the people development. And I wanted to get back to that. And I knew that I had the opportunity to take the feedback from people like Fi and make that sort of training open to anybody in the world that wants to do it, right? Literally anywhere in the world. But I wanted to also have it not just...
you know, here's some recordings, here's a course, because people don't usually kind of go through courses, you know, we've all done them where you're super enthusiastic when you start, β you know, you learn a few things, and then you're like, β I'll come back to it, right? I didn't want it to be like that. I wanted to build a community. I felt like the Tableau community was disappearing. And I wanted to get that back. Very small, which, of course, you know, hopefully it grows huge one day, we'll find out.
But I wanted to have that kind of personal connection with people that I had at the data school. But I'm able to do that with so many more people now through the live training classes that I do. So in those classes, I get a lot of interactivity with the people on there. I require them to have their cameras on, unless there's some kind of exception. We do lots of interactivity in the class as far as like, people are very comfortable asking questions, even if they're brand new.
And that's, I feel like with my experience, I'm really good at seeing people's faces and knowing when they don't understand something and they're not asking a question. And I called on them because I, you know, we've all heard this before. You can guarantee somebody else has that same question, but they're not asking either. And, and they get uncomfortable. β They might get stuck. They might not know the answer, but I also want them, if they don't know the answer, I want them to be very honest about not knowing the answer and just saying, you know what?
I don't know, I should have asked. And that's a skill that if they do it enough times, they're going to realise, I should just ask in the first place. And over time, they see that. I don't expect people to know how to do that right away. You're in this new environment. You don't want to upset the flow. You're not sure how the classes go, that sort of thing. β But I also love it when people at least try. OK, this is how I understand it. And it might be wrong, it might be right. Either way,
I reward them for giving the effort. we have this kind of, I don't know how it actually, I have no idea how this came about. I think one day I just gave somebody like a gold star for doing something really cool in class. And now it turned into like, there's different level stars for contributions in class. And I just kind of make them up. So the more experienced you are, the harder it is for you to get a really high star because there's, you know, an expectation that you know, certain things when you've been, especially maybe in the next to next level tableau for a couple of years.
β But anyway, it's really people love the stars. And it's really funny when you see new people, or it's their first or second class, they're like, what are these stars? I don't know, but I really like it. Because people will be in the chat. And then β there's a woman named Cheryl Scott who actually tracks all of them. So she's got a dashboard she built to track the stars and who the leading star getters are. And it's a really fun way to kind of...
build the community inside the classes. And I think that's one of the things that encourages people to get their cameras on. and then there's also like a demerit system for if people are distracted in class. It's again, I've been teaching long enough where I can tell when people are multitasking and I always call on them when they are and they end up admitting that they're multitasking and they get a demerit for multitasking because I'm only asking for an hour of their attention.
I want them to get the most value out of it. And of course, it's meant to be funny. β And people sometimes get excited about being on Team Demerit. I mean, there's just lots of different ways that we engage. But ultimately, coming back to your question, I wanted there to be a place where people could learn Tableau to an extraordinary level. There's nobody else that does what I do.
You know, there are tons and tons of courses, but nobody teaches those live. You might go to a cohort that your company sets up or, you know, a two-day Tableau class, but you're not going to remember all of that. I wanted to design something different, something that people really understand what they're doing, people that are getting exceptional skills quickly, right? I want it to be fast. I want it to be easy. And I want it to be guaranteed for people. Those are kind of like my three sort of
core ideas underneath of everything other than, know, I want to build exceptional talent and like Fi mentioned at the beginning, I want it to be where people are so good that they don't need me to teach them anymore.
Fiona (08:42)
Yeah, I had a lot of goosebumps moments as you were going through that because as you know, I've been catching up on the recordings of those live classes because I'm not game enough to get up at three o'clock in the morning for them. Although I am looking forward to the webinar tomorrow at 7am. But the thing, my observation about the classroom is...
Andy Kriebel (08:55)
you
Fiona (09:05)
just exactly the way that you described it. You know, there's people of all levels, but they're all switched on with their cameras. They're all engaging. They have the confidence to ask the questions. They have the confidence to respond to your questions as well. And I see how amazing these people are and what they do and the skills that they're learning. But...
The thing that we often talk about is not just the hard skills or the technical skills, but the soft skills and your approach to it and your patience with people as well, which kind of caught me off guard. I wasn't expecting you to be so patient. β Really.
Andy Kriebel (09:46)
You've never taken one of my classes
before.
Fiona (09:51)
seen you though online, the online persona of Andy I think is different to the to the trainer and the coach Andy and I feel like the people who are on your classes are so highly engaged and I see that in the community and the way that they care about one another.
Andy Kriebel (09:56)
you
Fiona (10:13)
and they help one another as well. Because we also started a community, it's gone silent. We haven't put a lot of love and attention. We may come back to it at some point because we felt the same thing, that the community in Tableau was difficult post Twitter. But yeah, like it really is something that's super special and I highly recommend.
Andy Kriebel (10:28)
Mm-hmm.
Fiona (10:37)
to people at all levels because you will learn anything and it's so much better than being stuck in a classroom for three days, which my brain just checks out of.
Andy Kriebel (10:47)
Everybody's does. You remember half of what you learned in the first half of the first day.
Fiona (10:52)
Yeah,
absolutely. So you mentioned a little bit around your experience at data school and moving things into building your own business that's doing something similar. And it's really great because people are able to be empowered and then go off and choose their own careers as well. Can you talk to us about a little bit more about your previous history?
Andy Kriebel (11:12)
Mm-hmm.
Fiona (11:18)
prior to being a coach and then what sort of pivoted you into coaching.
Andy Kriebel (11:24)
Oh, wow. I'm going to skip ahead a bit first before I go back.
But I owe a lot of the mentality of coaching to Tom Brown for actually calling me head coach, not manager of training or director of training or whatever it might be. It was a very different take on what my role actually was. And just from that title,
I knew sort of what the implicit expectations were of how I develop people, not just around technical skills, but around those soft skills as well. But my career actually started as an underwriter. So I have a math degree and it seemed like kind of the most natural place to go. I found a job. So of course, you're excited that you got your first job in the real world.
And I actually really enjoyed kind of the mathy part of that job and ended up where we needed to move. I found a job as a software developer, which wasn't actually all that different, even though it's quite a different skill. The thought process is the same. And I think that's one thing that I've kind of seen throughout my career. It's all.
problem solving, it's all puzzles basically, right? When you're writing a program, you're trying to solve a puzzle to get from A to B. When you're building a dashboard, you're going, you're building something, you're putting together a bunch of puzzle pieces that get you from A to B, right? any problem you're trying to solve is ultimately like a puzzle. You just need to know how to navigate your way around the puzzle pieces and put them together. And that's where the skill building comes in.
So after that, I went to Coke, and that's where I started using Tableau. But I didn't really do much coaching there, other than a bit of training to bring people up to speed on the kind of basics of Tableau that I knew at the time. There wasn't a ton of functionality, which I kind of missed that there wasn't a ton of functionality in a way. β But yeah, so there was a kind of lunch and learns and that sort of thing. then
You know, I probably trained a thousand salespeople on how to use the dashboards that I was doing. That's when Tableau Reader existed, if you remember that. imagine. is it? β okay. I didn't know it still existed. β Maybe it's some super secret place. You have to find it. But, getting in the training area, but not really the coaching. When I moved to Facebook, that's when I started doing a lot more.
Fiona (13:41)
It's still there by the way, it's still available.
Andy Kriebel (14:00)
a lot more instruction, a lot more one-on-one with people. And that was kind of like technical coaching. It wasn't really training, I would run training classes, but running the community and answering people's questions and meeting with them one-on-one when they're stuck That was all led me into coaching in a way.
One of the things I really enjoyed about Facebook was the way that the managers were taught to manage. And that was primarily based on having regular check-ins that the manager cannot cancel. So they're, you know, let's say they're
every other Wednesday at noon or, whatever it might be, right? Whatever the time is, the manager is not allowed to cancel those. Only the employee is. And you walk around when you do those. So you don't sit in a room, you know, cause it, sometimes it can feel like an interrogation in a way when you're, you know, when you're meeting with your boss in a room, it always feels like you're in trouble where when you walk,
β And it really leads to quite different conversations. You might get into talking about your personal life and how the job's affecting that. But it gives the manager much, much β more tangible β things to help you with, Their job is to remove obstacles, help you develop your career. β And then when it came to review time, there weren't ever surprises because they should be collecting feedback about you all the time.
I've always felt like if you go into a performance review and you're surprised, then you have a really shitty manager. β Unfortunately, that happens all the time. β So, if you're suddenly let go from a job, which we see all the time now, we see that from JLL lot now, people seem really taken aback by being laid off. There's something you should have known along the way.
Fiona (15:41)
Yeah.
Andy Kriebel (15:56)
there should be warning signs or something your manager is making you aware of that, hey, there's this possibility that this is going to happen. I can't say for sure. Of course, there's confidential things you can't say. And I get that, but there's ways around that. And I think that's a really important skill as not only a manager, but just as a person. If I had to let somebody go,
I want to help them, and I still want to help them. I don't want them to hate me forever. β you know, and so, you know, it's kind of my, my philosophy of it. So, so I took what I learned at, β at Facebook about being a manager and, β a coach per se. And because Tom had given me that, that kind of title, it really stuck with me, that sort of coaching part. So I would have regular meetings with everybody that was in training.
And if people were out of training and out doing consulting and they wanted to catch up, we can do that as well. They all had access to my calendar and everything. But I would do walking one-on-ones β because I just really, first off, I enjoyed the kind of historical aspect of London. There's just so much to see. And I would actually learn a lot about the history of London and take them on tours, actually. Like was a walking tour of London that I would tell them, you even though they've lived there forever.
You know, there's a lot they don't know. My favorite place to take them is the guy that invented the postage stamp and why he did it. So there's like these talking statues around London and you can learn all these really obscure kind of stories and it made for kind of an interesting distraction during the chat as well. But I always found them like super valuable and I really helped the people open up and let me know what their challenges are.
How can I help them? Who can I connect them with? All of those sorts of things, right? It would give me a lot of things to do when I came back that I knew I could help them with. β And I really, really enjoyed that aspect of the job. But again, as we expanded the cohorts and you had these other coaches coming in, they had to learn how to do that as well. So again, I kind of gradually lost that.
Sarah (18:10)
Gosh Andy so much to unpack there and I can't believe you started your career as an underwriter because I can't see you. You're so far removed from that now and just listening to your journey. I think coaching was always like an undertow for you. It was like you were always kind of reaching out and whether it's like finding that human side by, you know, stepping out and going on different adventures and stuff.
Fiona (18:11)
that
Sarah (18:37)
just to, I guess, bring everyone to a more equal playing field where they felt more confident that they could talk and everything. So yeah, really, really interesting. Just honing in on confidence. When people say someone is naturally confident, what do you actually think?
Andy Kriebel (18:57)
When they're naturally confident. I think there's characteristics people have, like β curiosity, being open to asking questions, β even if they think they're dumb questions
I bet you more that is, it's not, I don't think it's something you can be born with. I think it's something that's learned based on the environment you're around. β So if your parents are confident, if they're open with you, if they're asking lots of questions, if they're curious, that's what you're gonna do. Kids mimic their parents. So if your parents are introverts, you're probably much more likely to be an introvert. If your parents are, openly hugging you a lot, you're probably gonna be a hugger.
Right? So I suspect a lot of it comes, I guess, if you want to call that naturally, but I guess it's nurture versus nature. And I think it's much more on the nurture side. know, parents can teach their kids to be confident by, you know, either situations, say, hey, this is something you could have done or,
this is an opportunity to ask questions or just showing, demonstrating the behavior I think would, like Eve and I are both pretty confident people. I wouldn't say we're arrogant, but we're not afraid to ask questions of people when we don't understand something and we want our kids to learn that as well.
Fiona (20:17)
Yeah, I mean, I've certainly seen people grow in confidence specifically for how you coach them. And a lot of that is around, opening the door for them to ask those questions or kicking it open as you do sometimes as well. And I know that you've coached a lot of analysts over the years. What's the earliest signal that someone will actually step up?
Andy Kriebel (20:32)
Mm-hmm.
β Well, if I think about, know, the easiest thing for me is thinking about next level tableau. And I think that's people putting in just that little bit of extra work. And so you all know from watching the videos that there's often homework at the end. β And it's very intentional to help people build their portfolio, commit to finishing things. β
you know, posting on LinkedIn to start building their network, β all these kind of, you know, I guess those are our softer skills as well. And also accountability. A lot of people like that aspect of Next Level Tableau is that, it's definitely not peer pressure because, people don't slag other people off for not doing it. I think it's...
It's the willingness to put yourself out there when you're uncomfortable. And I try to help people with that by engaging when they post stuff on LinkedIn. Because I know my network is big, it can help them, right? It helps people get jobs. Especially there's a lot of people that are career transitioners in NLT. And they tend to be the people that really work hard. Most of them, they're...
maybe unemployed even, and they're investing in their learning because they know that this is an opportunity for them to learn very fast and to build an incredible portfolio very quick and to demonstrate their skills that far exceed people that have a lot more experience than them.
Fiona (22:15)
Andy, that's really interesting about the types of people that come on and the career switches as well. And noting that there are a lot of redundancies that come through. What's the one piece of advice that you would give to people who are changing their career or their level as to how to approach it and connect with potential opportunities?
Andy Kriebel (22:36)
I haven't experienced that myself. So let's just say, for example, I had to switch careers completely. Like I know what I'm gonna do when I stop using Tableau. So what am I going to do when I wanna start this next business? I'm going to find people,
that are already doing what I want to be doing five, 10 years from now. And we're to connect with them. I'm going to try to get on a call with them and pick their brain, even if I have to pay them for an hour of their time. Right. There's nothing wrong with that. Right. If you want somebody's time, offer to pay for it β and understand, like, what are the things I can do to shortcut what took them five to 10 years to do to get myself going quicker? Not enough people do that.
I see a lot of people that are the career changes and next level tableau doing that, but it's also, encourage them to do that. So, and that's, know, part of, guess comes back to sort of that, that coaching aspect, but that, think that's the first thing I would do is build the network, β identify the people that are the β influencers for lack of, I hate that word, but you know, there's influencers and in every industry, you know, who are those people?
Those people are going to be, you know, if I want to do the same business as somebody else and I reach out to them, they're probably not going to, if they're really good at what they do and they're super confident, they're not going to think that you're going to try to take business from them. The market's big enough. There's enough people in the world that need those same things and, you know, they can't satisfy everybody. They may even have people that, you know, that they can't help, that they would love to introduce you to.
But unless you put yourself out there and try to connect with these people, then you're not going to get that benefit. So that's the first thing I would do is find the influencers, try to connect with them, try to get on a call with them, even if you have to pay for it and pick their brain, get their advice for how they get started. You know, if they had to start over again, what would they do different? All those sorts of things to help you speed up what you're trying to do. And that's what I try to pull through when I'm helping people as well.
I don't want them to take 18 years to learn tableau. I want it to take them a year, right? So what can I do as their coach to, you know, 15, 20X, how quickly they learn things.
Sarah (25:02)
Yeah, think that's, it's really like network is so important, right? And building your network. And I think to your point as well, refining your network, if you find a different North star or whatever you want to call it, what can you do that kind of puts you there? there's a lot of philosophies that say, you are the sum of the five smartest people you hang out with and things like that. So it's almost like,
really focusing on who you want to kind of have in that circle and help you. And I like how you talk about as well, the clever people aren't ever gonna see you as a threat, but as, a kind of a companion on that journey and someone that can support from a different angle as well.
Andy Kriebel (25:46)
Mm-hmm.
And that's one of the things the Tableau community, back when it was much more thriving, the way that that was, the way that people helped each other. And that's what I'm trying to do for people now, because I know they don't have that support. I know they want support from each other, and they want to help each other as well. People don't understand that.
A community doesn't mean other people trying to get ahead of everybody else. It means everybody trying to pull everybody up. You're trying to lift the floor. Exactly. Everybody's stuck. So one person might have a Tableau server question, and somebody else is an expert in that area. Somebody else might have a Tableau desktop.
question, or that same person that answered the server question might have a desktop question. So there's all these things that go back and forth where once people are engaged in the community and most people are lurkers at the beginning, they'll see how people are helping each other as well. And we get into that in the office hour sessions that I run.
We talk about all kinds of things. Sometimes it's one-to-one help. Sometimes it's just life stuff that we talk about because we have time. Nobody has any questions. So it's like, hey, what else do want to chat about? They might be like, how do you organise your day? So we just get talking about something like that. how do you use LinkedIn? How do you decide what to write about? All different kinds of things. β
So, and those make for really, really fun conversations that probably help people more than I realise
Sarah (27:20)
What's the difference between someone who improves slowly versus someone who accelerates inside of next level tableau?
Andy Kriebel (27:28)
I think the number one thing is their investment in themselves, particularly if they've had to pay their own way. Those people are significantly more interested and engaged than those whose company just gives them access to NLT. Fortunately, I don't run into that very often.
And their managers usually pick up on it pretty quickly because let's say they sign up five people they're gonna see four of these people developing outstanding skills and seeing the output of that and this one person is you still creating crap so they'll reach out to me and be like What's going does this person ever come to class and I'd be like well, let me look at the logs and no Have they been watching any videos no, so
you know and I'm just giving data I'm just giving facts I'm not telling them what to do but they can see the difference between the people that are committed and those that aren't.
Sarah (28:23)
It's, you know, those
that do really well to those that don't do as well. And I think it's just active participation, isn't it?
Andy Kriebel (28:30)
definitely. Yeah. Yeah. And the homework is a big thing as well. Yeah. It shows commitment. It shows β that you really want to build your portfolio, build your network, all of those sorts of things. Like my favorite place to look at inside of NLT is the class follow-up. And that's where people post their homework.
And it's interesting because it gets longer and longer each week because more people are seeing other people doing it. And they're seeing them build these incredible tableau public portfolios. I like to talk about this lady, Melissa, who is a career changer. And she has like, I don't know, like 70 things on her tableau public in a year. It's crazy. But you can see that evolution in her skills. can see that she cares and she's very engaged and she sees the benefit of that from other people.
Fiona (29:16)
Yeah, there's nothing like having your peers, doing it and being surrounded by that to encourage you to move ahead as well. In that vein, do you think a little pressure is useful or controlled discomfort?
Andy Kriebel (29:32)
β Definitely, yeah. OK, I've got a great example for you. There was a, we were in office hours last week, and this one woman is relatively new to Tableau. She lives in Dublin. I say, have you offered to speak at the Dublin Tableau User Group yet? And she's like, well, don't have anything to talk about. I said, sure you do. Everybody has something to talk about. And I said, OK, next week.
We're going to come on here, and you're going to tell us that you've arranged to speak at the Dublin Tableau User Group. What does she do within two days? She gets herself a speaking spot at the Dublin Tableau User Group. So it's those little pushes where I know people want to do it. They're afraid to, but it gives them that little bit of accountability. We do rehearsals for people's tug talks in office hours. Rudy, who spoke last week at the Nashville Tableau User Group, he had told us,
I don't know, like a month ago that he was going to be speaking at that. said, Hey, two weeks from now, I want you on here again. And I want you to practice your talk with us because we're all going to give you feedback because we want you to kick ass when you get to that. And he practices talk. Everybody gave him feedback, good, bad, you know, I wouldn't say bad areas to improve. And, and he said, it just made all the difference in the world. we're gonna do that again before the Tableau conference. We're going to have people practice their talks.
We're going to actually run a mini NLT conference before the Tableau conference. We're going to have people talk about their stories and how NLT has helped them and what it's done for their careers or the impact that a particular thing they learned has had on their career. So we're going to have, it's going to be much more around the community. So I'm really, really looking forward to that. It's going to be super fun. And they're actually helping organise it. So I'm doing very little organizing.
Fiona (31:30)
That's amazing. mean, there is so much that you can learn from your program. Even people that have been using Tableau for so long. mean, Sarah and I viz together very frequently and so we pick up things off one another. But there's things that I learn.
on your program and I call out to Sarah, did you know this? So for instance, we were consulting for a client and doing a lot of table work and there was a lot of date work that was involved in that as well and I had no idea to right click drag and it took something from five clicks down to three. Now when you're doing that repetitively, not only is it boring as hell, it's also like a strain on an old wrist.
and doing that same movement of different things going on and then right click and then once it's got double click it's gone on there and then change it and everything else. So little tiny tips like that watching you viz through your sessions really helps me to elevate things and I'm like wow I never knew that it was possible. Other things like the T for labels never knew, I don't think that I've explored.
Andy Kriebel (32:13)
Yeah, yeah, couple of times.
Fiona (32:41)
the toolbar very well, because there's all these things that I was learning that are so fast and make it a lot faster. And suddenly Tableau's not as legacy as what you would anticipate.
Andy Kriebel (32:43)
Thank
Yeah, and I try to really help people be more efficient with what they're doing because that's where they can see the productivity gains and they're starting to produce things faster at work, faster, better quality. They're going to get the recognition. They're going to get those raises, maybe promotions, whatever it might be. They're going to set themselves up for success just through those little things.
Fiona (32:57)
Mm.
Andy Kriebel (33:19)
people like yourselves that have been in Tableau for a very, long time, they go to beginner classes because they know they're going to learn something, you know, and,
Sarah (33:26)
β yeah, the amount that I learned
from going to like any of your classes, I was watching one about map players the other day and I think I learned 30 other things besides map players. It's like just all the little shortcuts that you you. Yeah.
Andy Kriebel (33:34)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, you. Yeah, and
you probably hear it, you know, at the end of every class, I ask everybody to put, just one thing you learned in the class today, because I want to reinforce to them that they are learning something in every class, right?
And it's funny because it's so often something that has nothing to do with the topic we're teaching. It's those little efficiency gains. It's, I didn't know you could do X, Y, Z. And yeah, it's really funny. It's kind of become a sort of a thing inside the classes now is, β I didn't know this little thing. I'm calling that as my favorite. And we're five minutes into the class and then, they'll learn another one. like, no, β I want to take that one away. I want this one to be it said. But it's a way to really reinforce to people.
that they are learning things. And there are some classes that I repeat because I think they're just so foundational to Tableau. And yes, you could watch the recordings, but there's always a difference when you're able to ask the questions in person. And every time I teach a class, I learn something about how I could teach it better the next time. So I've taught blue versus green probably four or five times in next level Tableau. And every time it's better.
So if I go back to the first time I taught it, I'm probably going be like, oh, that wasn't great. But I'm not going to remove it because there's probably still things people can learn from those videos. Like if you use the AI agent inside, it's going to use all of that content to help answer your question. So I might answer one thing in one video and another one in another one, even though it's the same topic.
But yeah, I just try to make it really interesting and fun for people. I don't like repeating the same topics over and over again. You all see from the way that I organise the classes, there's sort of a structure, but sort of not as well. We could do actions for like 10 weeks in a row if we wanted to. But.
people aren't going to find that very interesting. So I try to really mix topics up a lot. There's only a few things that I think people need to learn in a very specific order. And I cover those in the beginner classes. And I repeat those. The beginner tends to be like maybe every every six months, I'll do that course set of four or five classes β and then mix it up again after that.
Fiona (35:59)
So if you just thought listeners, I'd love to have some fun in my role and you're getting lots of great tips from Andy, maybe share this episode with someone who will actually pick things up and go and do something about it.
Sarah (36:15)
So Andy, for you, when does someone stop learning Tableau and start thinking Tableau?
Andy Kriebel (36:24)
that is a very good question. I don't think they realise it, actually. it's those little habits you build. Things just come much more naturally without really needing to look them up. It's different for every person. some people just take, calculations in particular. Sometimes it takes a really long time for referred to click for people. People that have a SQL background tend to pick up Tableau much faster, I find, because the logic is the same.
So when do they stop learning Tableau and starting to think like Tableau? For me, probably took, I don't know, five, eight years before I really felt super comfortable like that. But it's all about the time you put in, right? I'll see people post that on NLT like, this used to take me forever. Now I don't even have to think about it.
Right? And it kind of depends on also what you mean about thinking like Tableau. So I think map layers and learning how to use them for charts and not maps really helps you understand how Tableau thinks and how you can think around solving any problem you face in Tableau.
And that really opens a lot of, I found recently over the last year that that's been a really good way for me to help people think more like Tableau.
Fiona (37:42)
Yeah, it's certainly a skill that is something that needs to be practiced. And the most that I learned is actually when I'm watching other people tableau like really fast and seeing what they're doing and the way that they're going about it. mean, when I was at JLL, I had the opportunity to partner up with Simon Beaumont and we were doing some deliveries together. And we would, I was doing the data prep side.
Andy Kriebel (38:03)
Mm-hmm.
Fiona (38:09)
and getting all of that ready. And then he was doing the visualisation side. We were coming together and trying to get things done really quickly on a five day trip in Chicago. And I would be like, stop, what did you do there? Like, I've never seen that before. But he said the same thing to me when we were building our guidelines and I was like, β I'm just gonna swap the sheet. And he's like, what, how did you do that? So I think if you can take some time to observe other people,
Andy Kriebel (38:14)
Thank
Okay.
Fiona (38:38)
building it actually helps you to build your skills really quickly.
Andy Kriebel (38:40)
Yeah.
Yeah, and I used to get a lot of feedback when I did those Watch Me, Viz videos back when I had time. β That people would learn a lot from those just watching me do things, even though I would fly through them. I would try to teach along the way and explain what I, you know, basically talk out loud about how Sarah, like you mentioned, how I'm thinking like Tableau. I don't realise I'm talking that way, but I am. So, yeah, I'd love to have the time to get back to those, but β I don't.
Fiona (38:46)
Mm.
Just join next level Tableau and you'll be able to see it anyway. β But there's one question that I've been busting to ask you and it's because I heard you mention recently, You said, know, there's one question that you ask that predicts who'll become a great consultant. What's that question?
Andy Kriebel (39:10)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Sarah (39:13)
You
Andy Kriebel (39:35)
that one question. I know exactly what you're referring to. it has something to do with like, what are the characteristics that make a great consultant? Yeah. And if somebody doesn't say listening,
Fiona (39:44)
Yes, yes.
Andy Kriebel (39:49)
then they're not going to be a good consultant. It's probably more around knowing who is not going to be a good consultant versus who is going to be a good consultant. Because a lot of times, like, oh, I can execute on a plan or whatever it might be. It usually doesn't focus on the soft skills. But listening is by far the most important trait.
Fiona (40:12)
Thank you for sharing. And I guess it goes for not just external consultants or consultants at companies, β for clients, it's more around internal consulting as well. Listening is really important and giving people a really good, hard listening to. Sometimes hard for me to stop talking though.
Andy Kriebel (40:23)
Absolutely. Yep.
But you know, if you're on an internal project, you're a consultant to your stakeholder, right? Treat it like you're a consultant.
Fiona (40:35)
Mm-hmm.
Sarah (40:36)
Mm.
Yeah, yeah. I always like the listen to hear, not to respond.
Fiona (40:44)
Andy, we could have gone on for hours and hours. There is so much that people, managers and leaders could absorb from your great coaching that can help them to build great culture for their teams. Thank you so much for joining us and sharing your expertise with our listeners today. We have learned so much of your secret sauce.
Sarah (41:06)
Your insights have been invaluable and we really appreciate you taking the time to chat with us today.
Fiona (41:14)
And if you out there listening to this have loved this conversation as much as we did, don't forget to hit follow, leave us a review, definitely leave us a review and share this episode with your fellow Data Fam members.
Sarah (41:28)
What I'm taking away is that confidence isn't magic.
Fiona (41:33)
It's repetition, questions, feedback, and curiosity.
Sarah (41:38)
It's about design, not personality.
Fiona (41:41)
So see you next time on Undubbed. Bye.
Sarah (41:44)
Bye.
Andy Kriebel (41:45)
Bye.
