Jicks Sustainable Development

According to Jick and Peiperl (2011), in 1998, Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) hired James Shaw and Amy Middelburg to help them with their partnership with AIESEC. After a few short months, Shaw found himself in the middle of a new initiative for the company. He and AIESEC alum Amy Middleburg raised the issue of “sustainable development” (also called sustainability) (Jick & Peiperl, 2011). Raising this initiative placed Shaw and Middelburg in the “middle space” between the agendas and interests of management employees and customers.

This proposal will analyze how a midlevel manager can impact an organization successfully by changing the company culture. Also, it will review the personal characteristics of Shaw and others who impressed their

If change is accomplished too slowly it could potentially lead to a loss of profit and problems in the organization. The workers’ morale also needs to be considered because the longer it takes to address the change or the employees’ morale the less confidence they will have towards the overall vision. By implementing Middleburg’s and Shaw’s vision, not only will the initiative need to succeed but upper management is also taking a large risk by allowing these young employees to make such a dramatic change. Their plan will impact upper management, but it will also impact the employees, partnerships, and

Recommend a working group be formed with the goal of developing or articulating a final goal or endpoint. Once a general idea of the goal or endpoint is identified, appoint a working group to develop strategies to achieve the goal. The working group should consist of individuals that have demonstrated excellent communications skills as well as successful program development skills.

James Shaw and Amy Middelburg brought energy to PwC and new ways of thinking. However, the old traditions were embedded in the leadership and proved to be obstacles for the changes. In order for change to happen, the system must be reevaluated in order to determine where change can be implemented. Most organization changes are based on leadership driving the change. But, in order for this change to happen a bottoms-up approach or middle-level approach has to be used. Create teams of new interns to bring new life and ideas to the company or empower middle management to start the process. As Shaw and Middelburg were able to create change from the middle by “coaching and mentoring mid-level leaders creating better environments providing tools to personnel and empowering them to create change” (Riley, 2003, p 1). Using corporate social responsibility (CSR) teams, NGO pro bono work and contributions to global public policy are several of the things the team were able to implement