Unique Team Building Events- The Fighter Pilot Way

Team Building The Fighter Pilot Way

Afterburner has been delivering Team Building programs in Australia and Asia for over twelve years. Our pilots and clients have thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to bring their two worlds together. Even if only for a day or two! One of the key reasons for the success of our team-building programs is the genuine motivation and interest that our coaches – all fighter pilots – have for sharing the lessons they’ve learned after having millions of dollars invested in them by the Government.

A Dismal Business Success Rate

Fighter pilots execute their missions successfully over 98% of the time, which in their world is business as usual. It isn’t something they take particular attention to, it’s the benchmark and it’s consistently achieved. In business, the consensus on organisations successfully executing their strategy is anywhere between 13-30%. That’s a huge difference! We’ve realised over time that there are a few key reasons for this difference in performance and they may not be the reasons you think.

For starters, the majority of fighter pilots are incredibly average and the individuals coming through the recruitment process aren’t exactly ‘superstars’ in any particular field. So, it’s safe to say that trainee fighter pilots aren’t elite athletes, academic geniuses, or groundbreaking theorists. However, something very special happens once these ‘average Joes' walk through the door to pilot training.

pilot training for teamwork

(Image Source: https://www.defencejobs.gov.au)

A very sophisticated proven system switches into gear and transforms these pilots into some of the world’s most effective practitioners. This system is what we call the Flex Methodology. Flex is a simple, repeatable, and effective tool that delivers some extremely useful outcomes including:

  1. Situational Awareness: The ability to source the right information at the right time to empower an individual to make a decision that results in an effective action being taken.
  2. Alignment: By aligning small teams around a common purpose and clear objectives we create a solid mechanism to create situational awareness and share it quickly amongst the team.
  3. Debriefing: By looking back at our performance and quickly stepping through a very simple and structured review process we create and adapt our future objectives based on the real world, moving away from our dependence on forecasts and planning using assumptions rather than facts.
  4. Focus: Through the application of Flex we’re able to gain awareness of when we’re suffering from task saturation (stress) and quickly follow a simple method to find our focus and return to an even keel.

Avoiding Task Saturation

It sounds simple right? Well, it is. However, the reality is, organisations struggle to let go of complicated processes and the false belief that focusing on many tasks with a few key people equals success. The reverse is actually true. Following a simple process, focused on the achievement of no more than three objectives results in 98% achievement of those objectives, rather than 30% of the many tasks that swamp us every day in today’s workplace.

Through participation in a two-day dynamic team building program, we are able to educate an organisation on how and why simplicity works, based on real-world examples of success in the fighter pilot world and business. We are able to break through functional silos by participating in a fun and energizing team planning exercise where teams are able to ‘experience’ the world of fighter pilots and in particular time-sensitive mission planning.

Team Building Programs

We are able to apply the lessons learned to an organisation’s real-world challenges and take these lessons into the future. Our second day is an immersive planning workshop where an organisation and their teams will leave with:

  1. Strategic objectives;
  2. Supporting objectives for each leader; and
  3. Enabling objectives for each member of the team, for a 90-day period, to be applied within the business to drive real and effective change.

Team building can be fun, dynamic, energizing, and most importantly relevant to an organisation’s day-to-day operation.  At Afterburner we think that’s common sense or what we call a “no-brainer”. Why would you conduct a team-building exercise without extracting as much value for your organisation and in turn the clients and customers you serve? We don’t think of it as team building anymore. For us, it’s all about team growth and transformation!

Contact us to discuss a team-building experience you'll never forget! https://afterburner.com.au/solutions/ 

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