What do flying fighter jets and executive life have in common? More than you might think. Last week, Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre in London opened its doors to the London Air Show, with exhibitors from all over the world showcasing aviation wizardry. One company, Ultimate High, based at Kemble Airfield in Gloucestershire, was offering an unusual product – a Top Gun course for managers.
Staffed by former and present Royal Air Force (RAF) fast jet pilots, many of whom have flown in combat, Ultimate High offers courses that claim to train senior managers to think like fighter pilots.
Mark “Greeners” Greenfield is managing director of Ultimate High, an ex- RAF Hawk jet pilot. His company has 16 other former and current RAF pilots who offer a management training package in collaboration with Mission Excellence, another company formed by a team of ex-fighter pilots. It provides what it calls “high impact conference seminars, execution focused training and motivational keynote speakers” to the business world.
The two-day Top Gun course can be organised for up to 12 delegates and is run from Goodwood airfield in West Sussex. Senior managers are introduced to the techniques used by RAF fighter pilots to deliver results in a pressured environment.
At the heart of these courses is the mantra: plan, brief, execute and debrief. Mission Excellence and Ultimate High believe this process is as relevant to executive decision-making as it is to an RAF mission.
Mission Excellence offers a bespoke half-day seminar that includes an interactive mission planning exercise. This forms day one of the Top Gun Experience. During this desktop exercise, delegates are given hypothetical fleets of fighters and bombers with which they plan a simulated mission against their opponent – their firm’s competition.
Justin Hughes, managing director of Mission Excellence and a former RAF Tornado and Red Arrows pilot, explains the relevance: “Fighter pilots have to deliver results under pressure to a plan. They are very good at these skills because they have to be.”
Day two sees the delegates take to the skies in Bulldog propeller training aircraft, accompanied by a pilot and having planned and briefed their bombing raid on the ground. The aim of the airborne mission is to perform a reconnaissance of a ground target. According to Ultimate High’s Greenfield, these targets include conspicuous landmarks such as mobile phone masts in the countryside. Several waves of aircraft will fly during the day, with one delegate in each plane together with a pilot.
During the flight, the would-be fighter pilots might be suddenly introduced to threats such as a hypothetical surface-to-air missile attack. They have to take account of this during the flight and amend their route accordingly to avoid being shot down.
According to Greenfield: “We give them various tasks to think about in the air, just as they would at their desks. If you have a bunch of conflicting tasks you have to prioritise, just as you would in real life.”
Back at base, the entire team is debriefed. They review the mission, discussing what went right and what could have been improved.
Mission Excellence’s Hughes says that debriefing is relatively rare in the business world. He is also keen to emphasise that the experience is about developing skills: “Our focus is on the delivery of some transferable skills which are relevant to just about all businesses.”
The idea is to show delegates that military decision-making has parallels with their role in the business world.
The exercise takes its cue from similar ones performed by the military notably the Red Flag exercises that are held annually in Nevada in the United States.
During these exercises, US allies from all over the world send their pilots to practise air strikes and air-to-air warfare in a hypothetical confrontation between “red” and “blue” forces. The objective is to hone the skills of aircrews and encourage the exchange of ideas.