Bullet points with the boss at Yas Mall shooting venue

Ever fantasised about shooting your boss? Entrepreneur Jack Craine can make it possible, not literally of course.

His training company Gameplan offers businesses a unique team-building experience with work colleagues split into two teams, equipped with replica rifles and sent in to battle – all inside a shopping mall.

His company has partnered with Tasleeh Entertainment to offer the experience at their newly opened shooting venue, the Battle Zone, in Abu Dhabi’s Yas Mall.

“We’re linking some key training activity with fun team-building,” says Mr Craine, 52, from the UK.

But it’s not all about shooting off steam and bonding over bullets. In the lead-up to the big day, participants fill in a questionnaire that profiles their behavioural preferences. “Our neuroscience-based profiling instrument, called prism brain mapping, is for management teams to develop self-awareness of their own particular behaviours in the context of leadership development” explains Mr Craine, who says a two-day programme costs Dh4,999 per person including refreshments.

Before going into battle, Gameplan’s psychological profilers explain, in either English or Arabic, what the questionnaire results mean over breakfast in Tasleeh Entertainment’s aptly titled Kalashnikov Cafe.

“We’ll go through some great theories about how you can influence people by adapting your behaviour,” he says. “Some people are analytical and like more detail, some are more creative and perceptual and like visual imagery, some are more social and empathetic so like to be chitty-chatty, and others are more direct and results-driven. We help people to realise their characteristics and how they can adapt their behaviour to become more influential.”

In the afternoon, teams put the theory into practice inside the maze-like Battle Zone, which is decked out with military-style netting, graffiti art and artificial foliage. Five giant projector screens display Call of Duty-style battle footage while teams wear protective eyewear, helmets and vests and are pitted against each other equipped with rifles that shoot out small plastic “Airsoft” pellets, which can be felt but allegedly not painfully so.

After activities involving target practice and time challenges, the teams are debriefed back at the cafe.

“We link the debrief back to communication skills, leadership, trust, how you worked together and how you dealt with issues like motivation,” Mr Craine says. “We transfer the learning from the day’s session into tangible actions in terms of changes in habits and behaviours that will help them to become better workplace leaders.”

Mr Craine was regional general manager of the mobile phone company i-mate before setting up Gameplan in 2008. His company is headquartered in Dubai’s Knowledge Village, with an office in Riyadh and trainers based in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain. Eleven of the company’s 17 employees are based in Dubai.

The idea for military-style corporate team-building sessions came when an intermediary introduced Mr Craine to Salem Al Matrooshi, the Emirati chief executive of Taleeh Entertainment a year ago. “At the time, lots of companies were approaching us to ask if we offered team-building,” says the entrepreneur. “We had all the materials, but we didn’t offer anything that was what we would consider to be a differentiation.”

The meeting led to a discussion on how Battle Zone could be used for business training.

“What attracted me to this partnership was that I don’t think there is anywhere in the world that combines the world’s leading neuroscience profiling instrument with what is the region’s first entertaining indoor battle-zone arena. This blend is a world first,” says Mr Craine.

That’s not to say there aren’t other wacky team-building options in the UAE. Abu Dhabi’s Yas Waterworld offers “athletic” activities that include racing down slides with tennis balls. Sessions at Wadi Adventure, a man-made whitewater rafting, kayaking and surfing centre in Al Ain, also include the option to book a leadership consultant. Companies looking for something less physical can look to Turnaround, based in Dubai’s Knowledge Village, with experiences ranging from cardboard boat-building to recreating works of art.

The leadership expert Prakash Menon, however, believes it takes more than a team-building session to build an effective team.

“High-performance teams are not built overnight; they are formed over a period of time by developing trust, strong work ethics, and are bound together with an aim to succeed,” says Mr Menon, who is based in Dubai.

So far, Mr Craine has two clients committed to team-building sessions post-Ramadan.

Some might argue, however, that Gameplan’s Battle Zone experience might cater more to testosterone-fuelled males in the office. “You would have thought so,” acknowledges Mr Craine, “but I’ve seen lots of ladies who are actually better at shooting than the males.”

Mr Craine also practices what he preaches. “I am a granddad now, but it doesn’t stop me from running around and getting involved in the battle zone. I was pretty terrible when I started but now I’d be able to compete against most people.”

business@thenational.ae

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