I have recently returned from the Cook Islands where I hosted a team building event, the third such event for strategic management for this particular seafood conglomerate. Each year this event has brought more interest, more managers, and more dosh (money) for me. Satisfied customers return – business 101.
It very nearly didn’t work out this way. My methods are extreme and not to everyone’s tastes. The first such event perched teetering between revolutionary and catastrophic. I was attempting to break new ground – would the ground break or would Franco?
It all began when I noticed that boot-camps were becoming popular in fitness circles. People were paying good money to be yelled at, bullied, and tortured into physical health. Often clients, who were paying premium gym memberships, paid even more for fitness sessions outside their gym! Moreover, they were going to these boot camps at 5am or earlier. My initial reaction was ‘book in for an MRI scan because you all have brain damage’.
My next reaction was ‘cut Franco a slice’.
I’ve never walked the beaten path. In fact, if you are currently walking along a beaten path it was probably I that beat it, savagely into obedience. It’s in my nature to dominate. With that as forethought, how would I take boot camps to the next level? Introducing - Franco Skinns Concentration Camps.
To direct you back, the first time I ran one of my Concentration Camps was the first team building event I ran for the afore mentioned conglomerate. I rented a ranch in a remote rural area. I converted the primary barn into an impenetrable fortress and stripped the interior of anything of sustenance (people will eat strange things when starving). All windows were blacked out and all lights converted to super-bright bulbs. No insulation was present meaning that, due to the dessert-like environmental conditions, days would be incredibly hot while nights shivering cold.
Upon arrival the clients were noticeably reluctant to commence. I explained that the exercise was not intended to cause any harm and that these extreme conditions would reduce them to their base instincts. Should they bind together as a team they would succeed and become a group so powerful that nothing could hold them back - not in the business world, nor the animal kingdom.
After much discussion they agreed to enter but only after the introduction on a safety word – ‘noodles’. Should, at any point, anyone of the party yell ‘noodles’ all excises were to cease immediately. I agreed.
I lead them into the barn and secured the door. I then instructed my staff – ‘If any of those fuckers says the word ‘noodles’ blast them with the fire hose.
Legally, I am not allowed to discuss what went on but I can offer an overview.
• They were locked in that barn for three days and three nights without water or food.
• They didn’t sleep due to extreme heat during the day and dazzling spotlights working throughout the night
• They were brought to the brink of human limits before uniting, succeeding, and gaining a bond unrivalled by any company in the seafood industry
• It was four hours into the exercise before someone used the safety word ‘noodles’ and was blasted with the fire hose. This occurred five more times before they were too terrified to ever use that word again.
• Exercise completion was celebrated with a seafood smorgasbord
• Twice more I have run this event – they bloody love it now.
• Franco got paid
That’s how to get results, Franco Skinns style. Life’s a fight so knuckle up.
Franco Skinns
Life Coach
A rare photo of Franco Skinns taken unawares by a Cook Island local.
