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The company sales staff gathered in a conference room for a training session, paying dutiful attention to the speaker's introductory remarks. Suddenly the door bursts open and a man runs in screaming, "I can't stand it! The heat...the desert...the sand in my eyes..." He staggers over to the speaker, imploring aid.
An escaped nut case? Nah. He's really a facilitator for Eagle's Flight of Guelph, Ontario, kicking off its "Gold of the Desert KingsTM," a session of "experiential training" (the term its creators prefer to "game") being held at a client's office or at a conference center. He will preside over the program during its two-hour playing time, then lead the one-hour debriefing period, during which participants discuss what they've learned and how it can be applied to their real-life work.
The facilitator might even be David Loney, president of 5-year-old Eagle's Flight. Loney's background includes sales, marketing and sales-training experience. The session just described is not necessarily typical, he explains. Sometimes the sales people know beforehand that they...