A Bold New Step in Employee Training

When COSE member Reserves Network was seeking a fresh and lively approach for their management training, Dr. Tango, the Cleveland Clinic physician also known as Dr. Jeannette Potts, got paged to write a script for a very memorable and constructive half-day presentation.

Dr. Tango took the floor with her unique brand of motivational speaking and employee development by combining tango demonstrations with her lecture philosophies on leadership, communication, teamwork and negotiation. According to survey results, many at Reserves felt it was the best or one of the best workshops they’ve ever attended.

A specialist in male urology at the Clinic for 12 years, Dr. Potts formed Dr. Tango, LLC in 2004, in response to the personal and professional lessons she’s learned from her passion for tango. Using these metaphors, Dr. Tango teaches not the dance itself, but tango-inspired business and life principles, like “do not anticipate” and “follow what you lead.”

She says the objective of her non-medical practice is to provide instruction for the steps to greater job and life satisfaction. “If we can be better listeners, we can be better partners, at work and at home,” she says. “We forget that listening is actually a form of communicating. Tango teaches how two people can work together in near-perfect harmony, without a single word.”

Dr. Tango feels that both life and work are “but a series of dances between people and companies.” It is messages like these that she brings to her employee training and development sessions, and that will publish next year in her book, “Tango: Lessons for Life.”

Often described by workshop attendees as invigorating, engaging and refreshing, and even “tangolicious," Dr. Tango thinks training should provide learning, but also entertainment, and that it's no longer enough to just be an entertaining speaker.