Developing Sustainable Business Organizations Process

The Ulysses Program by PwC

Discuss about the Developing Sustainable Business Organizations Process.

Project Ulysses emerged as a challenging voyage for the multination consultant company PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Ulysses was the major concept to bring out developmental leadership linking to various communities where the Organization operates. After major mergers in late 90s, the Company started its quest for a new model of leadership training that would create a worldwide network of executives (Noe and Winkler 2012, p. 78).  These executives shall be able to capitalize profit on the very nature of diversity and transnational nature of the organization’s operation. On the Ulysses project at Namibia, the leaders at PwC took an out of the box approach towards corporate social responsibilities (Ehnert et al. 2009, p. 52). The initiative taken to dig water for the underprivileged would directly help the Company to meet its strategic goals.

The strategic goal was to dig a wider scoop in the leadership skill of the various executives who would not only fit the situation but would be effective enough to deal with any kind of challenges occurred around the globe (Noe and Winkler 2012, p. 78). Thus, the developmental approach of leadership leads the Company to link the organizational activities with various communities (Borecká 2014, p. 178). This program was initiated in 2001 with the aim that the major leaders would be sent to major developing countries of operations that they would be able to understand the community situation and help the organization to carry out their business activities (Robbins et al. 2015, p. 24).

It has to be understood that in the early 2000, PwC had to face major challenges in terms of its leadership because there was a continuous change in the trend (Noe and Winkler 2012, p. 78). The Company was at a verge of being left behind as the top performers because other big MNCs were major leaders in the Ulysses programs. By 2004, it was found that the firm partnered with 18 other leaders and 17 different PwC territories was found to participate in various community programs (Velazquez et al. 2011, p. 38). For example, landmine mitigation in Eritrea, reintegration of ex combatants in East Timor, several other developmental operations in Ecuador was some of the community approach undertaken by PwC. In Uganda, the Company made partnership with the Alliance of Mayors and Municipal Leaders on HIV/AIDS in Africa. This journey acted as a learning program for the leaders and helped them to gain better knowledge of the community where PwC operates.

The Sustainability Approach by Following the 3Ps

Profit (economic): The sustainable management can be easily regarded as a pseudo of management where the main intension still remains in owning better leadership quality. In fact, the Ulysses programs of PwC can also aimed at better talent management (Noe and Winkler 2012, p. 78). These factors automatically helped the Company to compete with other firms and increase their profit margin. The aim was to identify the most eligible leader of the Organization who shall be able to foresee the approaches of global leaders in the light of complex business environment. The idea was to blend the training and development with the real life situation and understand the capability of the leader to work in different conditions and environmental situations. Thus, there was an increase in the economy of the Company.

Planet (ecological): In the view point of Ehnert et al. (2009, p. 12), the two major perspectives of the human resource management is to carry out CSR activity and at the same time create a sustainable approach towards the society. If the approach of sustainability is considered, the initial focus of the program was to create awareness and understand the issues related to sustainability of the particular region of operation. However, the major concept behind all these approaches was to build a better image of the Company and is a part of the Corporate Social Responsibility (Leaders 2014, p. 86). The various approaches undertaken by the Company helped to improve the ecological condition and the overall infrastructure of the region where the programs were held. For instance, in Namibia water was made available to the people of the region.

People (social): Sustainable approach is the fair and proper treatment of the employees in terms of their duties, ethical issues as well as the ecological sustainability. The initiative undertaken by PwC was to understand the learning objectives of the leaders. The learning outcome was aimed at three broad categories; namely, sustainability, diversity and leadership (Rendell et al. 2007, p. 11). Various approaches were undertaken by PwC in creating sustainability throughout the world. Apart from the programs related to AIDS/HIV in Uganda, a leader from Romania partnered with the Elias Mutale Young Training Centre in Kasama, the funding partner, United Nation Development Program for economic diversification of the region (Ehnert et al. 2009, p. 13). In fact, the leaders were also found to team up with NGOs from different regions like Malaysia, Sweden, South Brazil and Germany.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Ulysses Program

These approaches automatically built up a cultural diversity in the organization and a sense of experience in terms of both personally and professionally (Pless and Maak 2009, p. 60). This sustainable approach of learning automatically created a co-learning environment that was indeed important for the personal development plan for the leaders at PwC partnering with the NGO partners. This has helped the leader to understand the economic condition of those places.

The strengths and weaknesses of the Ulysses program can be measured by the end of the program. It has been evident that the main intension of the Ulysses program was to improve the leadership capability and talent management (Noe and Winkler 2012, p. 78). The programs helped the Company in carrying out the CSR activities rather than building any kind of sustainable improvement in the particular regions of operation. The overall strengths and weaknesses of the Ulysses program can be stated below:

The program had helped to recognize and build up future leaders of PwC who shall be eligible to take on the responsibility of senior leadership. The program helped in building a global network of PwC and helped in creating a positive image of the company. Most importantly, the program helped to capitalize the capacity of the leader in terms of its diversity and transnational nature of its operation (Noe and Winkler 2012, p. 78). It has helped the leaders to guide on the ambiguity of diverse culture. This has automatically made the leaders more responsible and drives them towards success. The program also helped in making partnership with major international business firms from throughout the world (Mirvis et al. 2014, p. 236). The communication skills of the leaders were also improved because they had to communicate face to face with the leaders of other nations

The program does not identify any weakness, but the complete program resulted in expenditure of the Company. In addition to this, with the approach of teaching new leadership technique, the actual leadership quality of the individuals was lost (Ehnert et al. 2009, p. 13). With the intension of learning and approaching for better understanding, the challenges for the training and development among the leaders were seen. The project forced them to such aspects that were not included in their proficiency. They found themselves under great pressure and could not acknowledge the same to the other senior leaders of the firms keeping their personal responsibility into consideration (Pless and Maak 2009, p. 70). Another drawback of the program was that the focus of the consultancy firm was rather changed to other forms of activities and was not limited to accounting.

Effectiveness of the Ulysses Program

The effectiveness of the Ulysses program could be easily determined by making proper approach towards the final outcome of the project. The program has resulted in many effective measures. The aim of the program was also to focus on understanding the cultural aspects of other countries where PwC operates (Noe and Winkler 2012, p. 79). This aim was effectively achieved by the end of the program. The program has successfully acted as a catalyst to overcome the challenges that the firm has been facing in its business. The four approaches can be mentioned as below:

Employee satisfaction rate: By conducting personality tests on the employees. It has been evident that one of major goals of the Ulysses program is to improve the leadership carry out talent management. Thus, the means of analyzing each individual leader who have been appointed for the posts, the effectiveness and consequences of the program can be known (Pless and Maak 2009, p. 62).

Reduced customer complaint rates: Since, PwC also approach at building better image of the firm by performing corporate social responsibility. Thus, it is recommended to keep a check of the ratings that the firm gets in terms of conducting CSR activity the effectiveness of the Ulysses program can be easily understood.

Performance improvement: By measuring the development of the leaders. The leaders were appointed with different jobs and activities as a measure of training and development (Maak et al. 2014, p. 115). Thus, to measure the effectiveness of the program, several performance indicators can be used to get acknowledged on the outcome of the program.

Measuring market share and sales volume: The program was intended towards increasing the market share of the firm that would consequently increase the profit margin of the firm. Thus, by measuring the market share and profit margin of the firm and comparing it with previous years’ data, the success and the effectiveness of the program can be easily measured.

The Ulysses program was effective enough for the firm and has helped the organization to achieve its goals and adjectives even in the competitive business condition.

References:

Borecká, M., 2014. Closing Chapter: Overview of the Findings and Areas for Future Research. Developing the Next Generation of Responsible Leaders: Empirical Insights and Recommendations for Organizations, p.178.

Ehnert, I., Harry, W., and Zink, K. J. (Eds.). 2013. Sustainability and human resource management: eveloping sustainable business organizations. Springer Science & Business Media.

Leaders, D.R.G., 2014. 3. Developing Responsible Global Leaders. Developing the Next Generation of Responsible Leaders: Empirical Insights and Recommendations for Organizations, p.86.

Maak, T., Borecká, M. and Pless, N.M., 2014. Developing Global Leaders Who Make a Difference. Developing the Next Generation of Responsible Leaders: Empirical Insights and Recommendations for Organizations, p.115.

Mirvis, P.H., Hurley, S.T. and MacArthur, A., 2014. Transforming executives into corporate diplomats: The power of global pro bono service. Organizational Dynamics, 43(3), pp.235-245.

Noe, RA and Winkler, C 2012, Training and Development: Learning for sustainable management, 2edn, Mcgraw-Hill, Australia.

Pless, N., and Maak, T. 2009. Responsible leaders as agents of world Benefit: Learnings from “project ulysses”. Journal of Business Ethics, 85, 59-71.

Rendell, M., Pepper, S., Vander Linde, K., Yildirim, L., and Wilkinson, A. 2007. Managing tomorrow’s people: The future of work to 20.

Robbins, S, DeCenzo, D, Coulter, M and Woods, M 2015, Chapter 7 ‘Managing for change and Innovation’ in Management: The Essentials, 3rd edition, Pearsons Australia.

Velazquez, L. E., Esquer, J., Munguía, N. E., and Moure-Eraso, R. 2011. Sustainable learning organizations. The Learning Organization, 18(1), 36-44.