Tango is a unique "hands-on" business simulation designed for all decision makers in knowledge organizations. Participants are divided into four to six four-member management teams. Each team is given a small consulting company to run for up to seven annual cycles, over two full days, in competition with the other teams for both customers and knowledge workers. Devising a profitable strategy and executing that strategy is critical. Progress is measured annually in two ways: traditional income statements and balances sheets and non-traditional measures for intangible asset values. Intangible assets tracked are "image capital" and "knowhow capital."

The plot:

Six small consulting companies on a growing market. Growing is easy...to begin with.

But at the same time some of your key people leave your company for the competitors. They even tend to take some customers with them. You try to replace them but the chemistry is not working with your clients so you have to decide: To keep the people and change customers or vice versa. Some people are burned out and leave you for that reason. Or, you invest a lot in letting people grow but that tends to cost more than you earn so you face earnings and cash flow problems. You succeed in finding a new position in the market but the customers' willingness to pay tapers off. Can you meet that with a higher degree of cost effectiveness? Is downsizing your best alternative in order to also get rid of non-profitable customer?

In brief: In two days Tango provides a real-life experience from which participants cannot fail to learn.

Key learning points and process:

•	Successful knowledge organizations need to establish and maintain the right balance between two markets. One for personnel (i.e. knowledge competence) and one for customers (i.e. revenues). Organizations usually focus on the customer market; the key is to combine the two. Participants experience and learn how to formulate and implement strategies that incorporate both key people and customers, discovering the results of effective customer/people synergy.
•	Can we be both profitable and take human values into considerations? Organizations often tend to believe that there is a contradiction between the two. On the contrary, there is a profitable connection. Participants will learn how to create and maintain a profitable organization as result of taking care of and making "capital investments" in people and other intangible assets, such as learning.
•	What is the connection between such concepts as: knowhow, image, and personal chemistry? Which intangible assets are valuable in a business context? Participants learn the importance of image, knowhow and personal chemistry and how to take advantage of differences in human competence in connection with building effective, profitable knowledge teams.
•	How can we measure "intellectual capital" or intangible assets? Participants learn how to account for and measure success and profitability in an organization where the key assets are mostly intangible. Participants will bring back a number of key ratios ready to use in your own company.
•	How does a knowledge organization's profitability (both short and long-term) relate to investments in personnel, competence and confidence building measures with customers? Capacity utilization is key to short-term profitability but long-term profits come from careful investments in and retention of "intellectual capital." Participants experience the matching dilemma, which will determine whether the organization enters a "virtuous circle" of attracting customers with challenging projects which builds competence and image helping to retain personnel. Or a "vicious circle" of less customers with fewer challenging projects which lessens competence and image and disenchants personnel.
•	What is the strategic dilemma of a knowledge organization? A knowledge organization often finds itself pulled in two directions. One direction is the paradigm of the industrialized "service company," the pull comes from the managers in charge. The pull in the other direction is by the professionals toward the pure knowledge organization. Both can be profitable. A third paradigm is a balance of both. The simulation allows participants to discover what, when, where and how various strategies will work.

During the five (5) years of company operation participants work in teams to plan and implement company operations on a trimester basis. Each team, functioning as a knowledge service company, competes with other teams for knowledge workers and customers. All companies start out on equal terms and are able at all times to observe the consequences of their decisions. At the end of each "year" they receive help in interpreting the course of events. They develop their own annual profit and loss statements and balance sheets and calculate their market value using and unique formula (See below) to determine their intellectual and competency values. There are no predetermined "winners" as the outcome of the competition between the companies is determined only by the interactive competitive decisions of the companies and their collective interaction with customer and people marketplaces.

The instructor serves as consultant to each team, helping them to analyze the course of events and reach conclusions. The realities of business operations are interspersed by the instructor in a series of lectures between operation years.

It is easy and fun to learn more about Tango. Just order your free copy of our Learning that drives earnings mini-CD. This min-CD (or this mini-simulation) demonstrates what we mean by “business specific experiential learning” and gives you a taste of the Tango experience. Give it a try.

Course objectives:

Develop awareness and the ability to maintain an overall view of a knowledge based business.

•	Recognize the unique relationship between the client and competency of knowledge workers.
•	Enhance project management skills
•	Learn the relationship between a business concept, business strategy and business planning and control.

Areas of emphasis:

•	Team-building
•	Understanding financial statements
•	Decision-making
•	Strategic planning
•	Financial management
•	Market orientation
•	Customer orientation
•	Market value and intellectual capital
•	Key indicators
•	Cash flow
•	Project management
•	People management
•	Client management
•	Competitor analysis
•	Action planning

The Market Value Calculator used in Tango is based on research from Karl Erik Sveiby. Karl's book "The New Organizational Wealth Managing and Measuring Knowledge-Based Assets" details the conceptual framework for changing business strategies to focus on intangible assets.

COMPANY MARKET VALUE* (tangible + intangible assets)
NET TANGIBLE ASSETS (EQUITY)	INTANGIBLE ASSETS (customer value + knowhow value)
	CUSTOMER VALUE	KNOWHOW VALUE (t&p + people competence)
		Tools & Processes Value	People Competence Value