Flawless Leadership Workshops℠
Flawless Leadership Workshops℠ turn leadership sessions into working sessions. Instead of teaching another framework, we apply proven execution principles to the challenges your team is facing right now. Whether you’re building a strategic plan, pressure-testing a critical initiative, or uncovering execution gaps through a debrief, every workshop ends with clear decisions, defined ownership, and a plan your team is ready to execute.
Available in half-day, full-day, or two-day formats, virtually or in person, each workshop is customized to your business and led by an Afterburner facilitator who prepares with your leadership team in advance. Choose from three workshop experiences: Planning, Red Teaming, and Debriefing.
Great Strategies Don’t Fail in Execution. They Fail Long Before Execution Begins.
Most initiatives don’t break down because teams lack talent. They break down because planning wasn’t aligned, assumptions weren’t challenged, and lessons from previous efforts never made it into the next plan.
Without intentional planning, rigorous stress-testing, and disciplined debriefing, teams execute against incomplete information. Risks stay hidden until they reach the market. The same mistakes repeat because no process exists to capture what was learned and turn it into better decisions.
Afterburner has seen this pattern across more than 2.2 million leaders over three decades. Flawless Leadership Workshops℠ expose the execution gaps that slow organizations down—and give leaders the tools to close them before they become costly.
Three workshops. Three places in the FLEX℠ cycle.
The FLEX cycle runs in four phases: Plan, Brief, Execute, Debrief. Most organizations run two of the four: they plan, and they execute. The Flawless Leadership Workshops sit at the three places where performance leaks and disengagement reign: the creation of the plan, the stress-test of the plan prior to execution, and the check-in between the plan and reality, the debrief.
Planning Workshop
Build the plan in the room.
The Planning Workshop is a half-day to two-day session that takes an initiative the organization is about to launch and builds the plan against it, in the room, with the team that will execute it. It applies the planning discipline the methodology was built on to a strategic, operational, or transformation initiative.
The destination gets named. The threats and contingencies get surfaced. The course of action gets selected, not assumed. The team that will execute it builds it. That’s what makes them own it.
The artifact leaves the room. So does the alignment.
Build the plan with usRed Teaming Workshop
Pressure-test the plan before the market does.
The Red Teaming Workshop is a half-day to one-day session that takes a plan the organization has already built and runs a structured red team against it, briefed on the strategic context in advance, attacking the threats the plan does not yet name.
Run as a standalone engagement when the stakes warrant it. Transformation programs, market entries, restructures, M&A integrations, regulatory shifts. Anything where the cost of the plan being wrong is higher than the cost of finding out it is wrong now.
The team leaves with a stronger plan. Not a different one.
Stress-test your strategyDebriefing Workshop
Install the discipline that turns today’s execution gaps into tomorrow’s action plan to close them.
The Debriefing Workshop is a one-day to two-day session that installs ORCA, the four-step debrief discipline at the core of the methodology, inside the organization. The first installation runs live, on the thing they ran last week, not a hypothetical or a case study.
The room runs the debrief Nameless and Rankless. The most senior leader at the table goes first. The lessons land in language the rest of the organization can use, and the cause analysis separates execution failure from planning failure, which is the part most post-mortems get wrong.
What leaves the room is the discipline. What stays is the habit.
Build a debrief culture in 90 daysWhat the workshops produce in real organizations
Sage Intacct · Planning
100%
Sales Quota in 60 Days
A Planning Workshop aligned Sage Intacct’s sales and marketing leaders on a single strategic objective in the middle of severe COVID disruption. The teams hit 100% of sales quota within 60 days.
The workshop built the plan. The aligned team delivered it.
IBM + VMware · Red Teaming
117%
Of Revenue Target in 90 Days
A Red Teaming Workshop pressure-tested the IBM and VMware alliance strategy, surfaced misaligned incentives, and reset the plan. The alliance delivered 117% of its revenue target within 90 days, with the pipeline forecast to 150%.
The destination did not change. The red team changed the odds of reaching it.
Schlumberger · Debriefing
$2.8M
Recovered in Six Weeks
A Debriefing Workshop exposed the systemic causes of repeated field errors and cut non-productive time. Schlumberger recovered $2.8 million in lost revenue within six weeks.
The debrief did not relive the failure. It removed the cause.
What clients say about
working with us
The workshops sit inside a thirty-year track record. Deb Lee, Chief People Officer at Compass Group, put it directly after working with Afterburner:
“Afterburner came in and blew us away, high octane and fun, they helped us understand how we can take back the fighter pilot mentality and start debriefing.”
Deb Lee
Chief People Officer, Compass Group
Next Step
Start with a 20-minute call
Schedule a 20-minute conversation with an Afterburner pilot to determine the best fit for your objectives. Whether you need a Planning, Red Teaming, or Debriefing workshop, we’ll recommend the format based on your initiative, not a standard package. Every engagement is tailored to your team, timeline, and desired outcomes.
A pilot replies within one business day. We scope fit before we scope pricing.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Flawless Leadership Workshop?
A Flawless Leadership Workshop is a half-day to two-day session for operational leaders and executive sponsors that applies the FLEX methodology to a specific strategic challenge: planning, stress-testing, or debriefing. Three formats: Planning, Red Teaming, and Debriefing Workshops. The methodology has been delivered to 2.2M leaders across 3,500+ organizations. Workshops run in-person or virtually, 8 to 1,200 people.
What’s the difference between an Afterburner Workshop and a Flawless Leadership Workshop?
Both apply the same underlying system. The Afterburner Workshop is the high-energy entry point: a first encounter with FLEX, often for event organizers or first-time clients. The Flawless Leadership Workshop is for organizations past that first encounter, ready to apply the methodology to a specific strategic challenge. Same room, same facilitators. 85% of clients are Fortune 500.
How is the Planning Workshop different from the Red Teaming Workshop?
The Planning Workshop builds a plan that does not yet exist. The team comes in with an initiative and leaves with the plan, built using the Six Planning Steps. The Red Teaming Workshop pressure-tests a plan that already exists, running Step 6 of the same sequence as its own engagement. Planning is half-day to two-day. Red Teaming is half-day to one-day. Both are delivered by the same 30-year methodology.
Who should attend a Debriefing Workshop?
Operational leaders responsible for execution, plus the executive sponsor accountable for the outcome. The discipline only installs if the room includes the people who run the work and the person who owns the result. The workshop runs Nameless and Rankless: the most senior leader at each table goes first. The first installation runs against something the team actually executed. The methodology has been delivered across 6 continents.
How long does a workshop take and what’s the format?
Workshops run half-day, one-day, or two-day, depending on format and complexity. Planning Workshops are typically longest because the plan gets built end-to-end in the room. Red Teaming Workshops are shorter. Debriefing Workshops sit in the middle. All three formats are available in-person and virtually, with group size scaling from 8 to 1,200. 85% client rebook rate.
What’s the outcome of a Red Teaming Workshop?
A stronger plan, not a different one. A structured red team, briefed in advance, surfaces the threats and contingencies the original plan does not yet name. The team that built the plan leaves with the same destination, a clearer view of what could derail it, and the contingencies that protect against the highest-impact failures. Booked by 85% of Fortune 500 clients.
Can a workshop be delivered virtually?
Yes. All three workshop formats are available in-person and virtually, with the facilitation model adjusted for the medium. Specsavers ANZ ran Deep Performance virtual workshops with Afterburner across their store leadership network, applying FLEX to specific commercial initiatives. Over the next four months, Specsavers recorded a 13.5% sales increase against the segment baseline. Virtual delivery changes the room, not what happens in it.
How do workshops fit with the Flawless Leadership Program or 90-Day Accelerator?
Workshops are the entry point. The Flawless Leadership Program and the 90-Day Accelerator are the longer-cycle development products that embed the methodology across an organization. Woolworths is the canonical example: a planning workshop for 8 senior executives became the proof point for a Flex program that reached 1,200 staff and delivered a return on investment north of 1,000%.
Who delivers Afterburner workshops?
Afterburner workshops are delivered by current or former military aviators who have built the methodology into a 30-year operating system since 1996. The lead facilitator on every engagement is a pilot, supported by a delivery team scaled to the audience. Christian “Boo” Boucousis, CEO of Afterburner and a former RAAF F/A-18 pilot with 1,000+ missions, is involved directly in the highest-stakes engagements.