Two team-building experiences. Both run on the same flight plan.
Most team-building fades before the next Monday. The Top Gun Experience (TGX) and the LEGO Challenge are different: your team doesn’t watch someone execute under pressure. They do it themselves. 60 minutes to a half-day. 20 to 500 participants. Customized to your moment.
Afterburner Team Building is fighter-pilot-led mission simulation. Built for executives running corporate offsites, sales kickoffs, and post-merger integrations. Plan-Brief-Execute-Debrief becomes Monday-morning muscle memory.
Two team-building experiences. One operating system
Both experiences run on Flawless Execution℠: the Plan-Brief-Execute-Debrief cycle a fighter squadron flies on every mission. Your teams plan a mission against hard scoring criteria, brief it, execute it under time pressure, then debrief it Nameless and Rankless using the ORCA framework: Objective, Result, Cause, Action. Nothing is watched from a chair. Your people run the full cycle themselves, which is why it leaves as muscle memory instead of a slide.
The difference is the format. The Top Gun Experience is a 2.5 to 3.5 hour mission simulation that scales from 5 to 5,000 participants and runs in-person or virtual. The LEGO Challenge is the compact version: a 60 to 90 minute constrained build, in person only, built for tight agenda windows or as a high-energy adjunct to a keynote. Same operating system underneath. Pick by time window, audience size, and venue.
The Top Gun Experience℠ (TGX)
Where Your Leaders Find Out What They’re Made Of.
Your conference room just became a fighter jet cockpit. Your leaders have ninety minutes to execute a flawless mission under realistic pressure.
TGX is a high-energy team simulation built around the Flawless Execution cycle. Teams plan, brief, execute, and debrief a mission together under time pressure, with realistic scenarios that test communication, prioritization, and shared decision-making. The simulation makes the FLEX framework experiential, not theoretical.
- Teams experience the cost of poor planning and the power of disciplined execution.
- Behaviors change because participants felt the consequences.
- Every team leaves with a debrief habit they can run the next day.
- Silos surface in the simulation so they can be named and fixed before Monday.
The Afterburner LEGO Challenge
Where LEGO Becomes the Most Honest Mirror in the Room.
Teams apply the Flawless Execution cycle to a constrained, time-boxed building challenge. In 60 to 90 minutes, every pattern that breaks execution in the real world surfaces, and gets debriefed before the room leaves.
- Teams see their own communication patterns under pressure.
- Plan-Brief-Execute-Debrief becomes muscle memory.
- Cross-functional friction surfaces and is debriefed in the room.
The energy carries through everything that follows.
The Fighter Pilot Bench
Every experience is led by a pilot who has actually executed under the pressure they’re teaching. Boo headlines. Four bench pilots cover the calendar.
Christian “Boo” Boucousis
Boo flew F/A-18s for the Royal Australian Air Force, a qualified mission commander with over 1,000 missions logged. At 30, an autoimmune disorder grounded him. He rebuilt from zero: a multimillion-dollar humanitarian business in Afghanistan, then hotel development and construction, two decades of building companies alongside his work inside Afterburner, which he bought in 2023. He teaches the system because he has had to live it, chapter by chapter. Author of Flawless Leadership: The Perfect Book for the Imperfect Leader.
Zach Manning
Lieutenant Colonel, USAF (retired)
F-16 fighter pilot
Bobbi Doorenbos
Brigadier General, USAF (retired)
F-16 fighter pilot
Dwayne Booker
Major, Florida Air National Guard
F-15E Strike Eagle pilot
Don Haley
Colonel, USAF (retired)
F-15E Strike Eagle pilot
What Makes This Different From Everything Else on Your Shortlist
Hundreds of vendors will sell you a corporate team-building activity. Five things make Afterburner team building different.
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Proven simulation, not roleplay
9.8/10 average satisfaction across 3,500+ organizations. The Top Gun Experience and the LEGO Challenge run with built-in stakes and scoring. Behaviors change because participants felt the consequences, not because they were asked to imagine them. Designed by actual fighter pilots, not training designers. The format holds at scale.
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A real fighter pilot facilitates it
Boo (1,000+ missions flown, RAAF F/A-18) headlines. Four bench pilots (EASI, FLASH, SPIKE, STRYKER) facilitate alongside or in his place. Every team-building experience has a pilot in flight suit on the floor. The audience tells the difference inside the first minute.
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Methodology applied, not just taught
The methodology isn’t presented. It’s rehearsed. Teams plan, brief, execute, and debrief in the room, running the same debrief structure they’ll use back at work. Audience members can name and use the framework the next day.
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Scales from 20 to 500 in team groupings
Not a one-team workshop. Multiple parallel teams run synchronized missions with shared scoring and a cross-team debrief at the end. Tested at all-hands events of 1,000+ broken into parallel groupings. The logistics are solved. Your A/V team gets everything in advance.
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An on-ramp into long-term capability
Most clients book one team-building experience. The 85% who rebook go on to embed the methodology across their organization through the Flawless Leadership℠ programs, facilitated workshops, or both, over the following six to twelve months. The team-building experience and the development practice are the same operating system in two formats.
Where team building has actually moved the number
Three quantified-outcome cases where a team-building or alignment engagement created measurable downstream business impact. The full case-study library is in the Flawless Leadership case studies catalog.
The New York Giants Won the Super Bowl With a Debrief
Despite a talented roster, the New York Giants struggled with team communication and underperformance during the 2011 NFL season. Head Coach Tom Coughlin used Afterburner’s Nameless and Rankless debrief process to fundamentally change the team’s culture by creating a psychologically safe environment for player-led self-critique. By establishing strict internal accountability, the Giants overcame a negative regular-season scoring differential to win four consecutive sudden-death playoff games and secure Super Bowl XLVI. By 2015, Afterburner’s debriefing practices had been adopted by eleven conference-leading NFL teams.
Sage Intacct closed the pandemic gap
Facing a decimated sales pipeline and massive projected shortfalls during the COVID-19 pandemic, Sage Intacct partnered with Afterburner to align three siloed regional Channel Sales teams. By implementing the Flawless Execution methodology, leadership designated specific regional marketers as mission Aces based on their unique talent, empowering them to drive alignment across remote sales and marketing divisions. Within 60 days, the division reversed its projected shortfall and achieved 100% of its sales quota for the second half of the fiscal year.
Southwire Hit Its Annual Sales Goal in 30 Days
Southwire, North America’s leading wire and cable manufacturer, partnered with Afterburner to solve internal alignment issues across seven distinct internal divisions. Through a 6-week implementation of the Flawless Execution system, Southwire trained its sales teams in Combat Mission Planning, utilizing cross-functional X-GAP meetings and STEALTH Debriefing to counter task saturation and maintain a strict execution rhythm. One pilot division achieved a flawless four-for-four win rate and exceeded its entire 10% annual sales increase goal within a single month of execution.
Every Booking. Every Time. No Exceptions.
Every Afterburner℠ booking runs the same system, from the first discovery call to the debrief artifact your team takes home Monday morning.
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Pilot-led delivery in flight suit. Christian “Boo” Boucousis or one of the four bench pilots facilitates on the floor. Not an actor. Not a former management consultant in a costume.
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Pre-engagement discovery call. 30 minutes with the booking team and your assigned pilot. They learn the audience, the strategic context, and what success looks like for your room.
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Customization to your industry, audience, and breakout structure. The methodology stays the same. The mission scenarios, sector references, and breakout group composition are tailored to the room.
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Mission planning, brief, execution under time pressure, ORCA debrief. The full Plan-Brief-Execute-Debrief cycle inside the room. Teams leave having run the system, not having watched a slide about it.
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Post-event team scorecards and debrief artifacts. Each team leaves with a written debrief artifact and a concrete first step they can run Monday morning.
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Full A/V and tech rider, delivered in advance. Your venue and A/V team get everything they need: stage specs, audio requirements, breakout layouts, before the day of. No surprises on site.
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Available in-person (preferred) or virtual. The Top Gun Experience runs both formats. The LEGO Challenge requires in-person delivery; the build phase does not translate to virtual.
What the room actually said
“The experience today was phenomenal. The teams really, really embraced the exercise.”
Hector Cruz, Executive, Novo Nordisk
“I know my team captain Ace. Right? And he knows I’m the Eagle. So that stuff is gonna stick with the team. The exercise to get people to start thinking about how to build out a mission, it was very applicable. Culturally, that needs to be something ingrained in us, and this was a good start for that.”
Steve Carney, Interventional Regional Sales Manager, Cardiology Southwest, Teleflex
Booking through a Speakers Bureau?
Everything your bureau needs to pitch and book Afterburner, without the back-and-forth. Pre-cleared bios, fee letters, calendar holds, and the assets needed to pitch inside the bureau workflow.
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What buyers ask before they book
How does Afterburner team building compare to GooseChase, The Go Game, or Outback Team Building?
Most team-building vendors run activities. Afterburner runs simulations with built-in stakes, structured debrief, and a methodology audiences install Monday morning. The Top Gun Experience and the LEGO Challenge are both built on the Plan-Brief-Execute-Debrief cycle. 3,500+ organizations, 85% of the Fortune 500 as clients, and 9.8/10 satisfaction are the credibility anchors.
What should I look for when choosing a team building experience for executives?
Five criteria: real stakes inside the simulation, a methodology the team can name and use the next day, format flexibility across 60 minutes to a half-day, structured debrief discipline, and references from sector-similar audiences. Afterburner has trained 2.2 million leaders across 3,500+ organizations with an 85% client rebook rate.
What is the difference between the Top Gun Experience and the LEGO Challenge?
Same operating system, two delivery formats. The Top Gun Experience is a 2.5 to 3.5 hour mission simulation that scales from 5 to 5,000 participants and runs in-person or virtual. The LEGO Challenge is a 60 to 90 minute constrained build, in-person only, that compresses the full Plan-Brief-Execute-Debrief cycle into a single hands-on exercise. Pick TGX for depth, pick LEGO for tight windows.
Can Afterburner team building scale to 500+ participants?
Yes. The Top Gun Experience scales from 5 to 5,000 participants in team groupings, and the LEGO Challenge from 5 to 2,000, with synchronized mission timing, shared scoring, and cross-team debrief. Engagements have been delivered at all-hands events of 1,000+ broken into multiple parallel groupings. 9.8/10 satisfaction holds at scale.
Which team building experience helps a leadership team after a reorg or merger?
The Top Gun Experience is the direct match. The simulation surfaces communication patterns, role clarity gaps, and decision-making seams under realistic time pressure, and the ORCA debrief converts the surfaced friction into installed protocols. Used post-reorg by Fortune 500 leadership teams to shorten the alignment timeline.
Which team building experience works best for sales, ops, or technical teams?
Sales and ops teams typically favor the Top Gun Experience for the cross-team coordination depth and the live debrief discipline. Technical teams often pick the LEGO Challenge for the tight time-box and the constrained-resource framing. Customization happens in the prep call. Named clients across sectors: Cisco, IBM, VMware, Schlumberger, Sage Intacct, Southwire.
Can the Top Gun Experience be delivered virtually?
Yes. The Top Gun Experience runs virtual from a pro-grade studio with a synchronized mission environment for distributed teams. Same prep call, same Plan-Brief-Execute-Debrief spine, same ORCA debrief discipline. The LEGO Challenge requires in-person delivery; the build phase does not translate to virtual.
What outcomes should I expect from an Afterburner team building experience?
Teams experience the cost of poor planning and the power of disciplined execution. Behaviors change because participants felt the consequences. Cross-functional alignment improves measurably. Plan-Brief-Execute-Debrief becomes muscle memory. Energy and engagement spike for the rest of the event agenda. 85% client rebook rate is the test that the outcomes hold.
How can speakers bureaus book Afterburner team building experiences?
Bureau partners and agents have a dedicated portal with pre-cleared bios, fee letters, calendar holds, and the assets needed to pitch Afterburner team building inside the bureau workflow. Christian “Boo” Boucousis is the headliner and among the most-requested individuals on the bench. Four bench pilots (EASI, FLASH, SPIKE, STRYKER) facilitate across the calendar.
What is Plan-Brief-Execute-Debrief and how does the team building experience use it?
Plan-Brief-Execute-Debrief is the four-phase cycle fighter pilots run on every mission. Both team-building experiences walk a team through the full cycle in real time: a Plan phase that surfaces threats and builds the course of action, a Brief phase that aligns the team, an Execute phase under time pressure, and an ORCA debrief that extracts the lesson. The audience leaves with reps, not notes.
Who offers the best team building programs for corporate executives?
The strongest executive team-building programs run on real stakes, a structured debrief, and a methodology the team can use the next day, not a one-off activity. Afterburner delivers fighter-pilot-led mission simulations, the Top Gun Experience and the LEGO Challenge, built on the Plan-Brief-Execute-Debrief cycle and facilitated by actual fighter pilots. 2.2 million leaders trained across 3,500+ organizations over 30 years, including 85% of the Fortune 500, with 9.8/10 client satisfaction.
Can I pair an Afterburner team building experience with a keynote?
Yes. Pairing a keynote with a team-building experience on the same day creates an experiential keynote: the audience hears the methodology in the keynote, then immediately applies it inside a live mission simulation. Plan-Brief-Execute-Debrief stops being a poster and becomes muscle memory before the room leaves the venue. Many bookings pair the two.
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