Following the merger that created the global services giant PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in 1998, the company began a quest for a new model of leadership training that would build a worldwide network of executives able to capitalize on the diversity and transnational nature of the firm's operations.
"It was clear that it was not going to be a standard business model with a standard leader. We needed to take people outside of that box," recalls Ralf Schneider, a PwC partner based in Frankfort who is head of the firm's global talent development efforts.
What emerged was Project Ulysses, a challenging voyage of discovery for promising partners in PwC that explicitly links leadership development to community development and channels the resulting learning back to help the company meet its strategic goals.
Under the program, launched in 2001, the company sends small teams of PwC partners into developing countries to apply their business expertise to complex social and economic challenges. The cross-cultural PwC teams work on a pro bono basis in field assignments for eight weeks with NGOs, community-based organizations and intergovernmental agencies in communities struggling with the effects of poverty, conflict and environmental degradation.
Two-way learning in communities in need worldwide
In 2004, for example, 18 young partners from 17 different PwC territory firms around the globe will be deployed in projects as diverse as landmine mitigation in Eritrea, reintegration of ex-combatants in East Timor, small enterprise development in Ecuador and strengthening community responses to HIV/AIDS in Uganda, a project in partnership with the Alliance of Mayors and Municipal Leaders on HIV/AIDS in Africa. This partnership, which began with a Ulysses project in Swaziland in 2001, has been so successful that it has been replicated in Namibia and now Uganda.
Learning in Project Ulysses is designed to take place at multiple levels: at the individual, team, and organizational level, according to Schneider. Knowledge gained is transferred back to the organization and its clients once returning team members resume their jobs, and in their formal debriefing sessions with PwC's global leadership. These sessions provide a feedback loop that permits PwC to continuously refine the Ulysses model to better meet the requirements of leadership in a dynamic global organization.
Schneider acknowledged, for example, that when Ulysses was launched, participants were heavily weighted toward partners from the US and Europe. To address that imbalance, PwC now tries to ensure the geographic and cultural diversity of each team -- a task made easier by the global pool it draws from: nearly 8,000 partners in member firms in 768 cities in 139 countries. Candidates for participation in Project Ulysses are nominated by the head of each of the company's territorial offices around the globe based on the partner's leadership potential.
Last year, 14 PwC partners worldwide were selected to take part in four teams assigned to projects in Belize, Zambia, Namibia and Moldova. Participation, which typically involves a commitment of up to three months, including training, fieldwork and debriefing, is a serious responsibility, on the part of both the employee and the company.
Applying global business expertise in Southern Belize
For Brian McCann, a PwC client service partner from Boston who specializes in mergers and acquisitions, the rewards-both personal and professional-of taking part in Project Ulysses were profound. McCann found himself the only US member of the 2003 Belize team, which included PwC colleagues from Malaysia, Sweden and Germany.
The mission of the team was to work with the Ya'axche Conservation Trust (YCT), an NGO based in southern Belize, the local government, and the private sector in evaluating the growth and income-generating potential of the eco-tourism market in the region. Priorities for the team included building capacity in YCT, to better serve the needs of the local indigenous Mayan residents. Economic conditions in southern Belize are bleak, with 50% of the population unemployed and 75% earning less than $200 a month.
On a personal level, McCann had to contend with unfamiliar and challenging living conditions including an abundance of insects, barking dogs, getting around by bicycle, and no air conditioning to temper the intense heat of his adopted home, Punta Gorda (population 4,000), the largest town in the southern part of the country.
Despite challenging circumstances, and with only eight weeks to make an impact, McCann says he and his colleagues "persevered and, as a team, delivered an outstanding work product for our client." They located an international microgrant program seeking a local partner in Belize, and wrote a proposal for YCT that would provide microfunding for 100 new and existing small businesses in the region over the next two years.
The Ulysses team also initiated a business training workshop for members of a Mayan women's craft center, developed a business plan for YCT and its woodworking training center, set up computerized accounting systems for the Trust, and evaluated revenue generating opportunities for the Belize Forestry Department, according to McCann.
A Romanian partner gains insights from Zambia
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, in rural northern Zambia, the main assignment for another PwC team in 2003 was to help a struggling agricultural youth training facility run by the Catholic Church in Kasama to build capacity to generate income and maintain stakeholder support.
Along with his teammates from Thailand, Australia and UK, Dinu Bumbacea, a PwC partner from Romania, worked with the Elias Mutale Youth Training Centre in Kasama, its funding partner, the United Nations Development Programme, and project manager, Africare. The team also spent two weeks in the Copperbelt area of Western Zambia, assisting the UN Global Compact on a strategy for economic diversification of the region. Bumbacea said the experience gave him new insights into operating in a multicultural environment and team and dealing with the public sector.
"So far, in my entire career with PwC, I have worked extensively in the private sector. Well, working with the public sector is different. Their drivers and perceptions are different. The lesson I've learned, even though I thought I was aware of that before my Zambia experience, is that knowing what drives your client is key for a consultant," said Bumbacea.
At a project debriefing in London last September, McCann, Bumbacea and other Ulysses colleagues shared their experiences in a two-hour session with the PwC Global Board that McCann described as "highly interactive and well-received by the board." (See box on lessons learned at right.)
Building on new models of leadership training
Cari Caldwell, a London-based consultant on cultural diversity who also helped design and implement Project Ulysses for PwC, emphasized "the need to really support the participants throughout the process by helping them to make sense of the experience personally and professionally."
Such support is built into the program in the debriefing process and during several weeks of cross-cultural training and coaching before Ulysses team members go into the field. "Without giving participants new frames of reference, they may risk being ';development tourists,' or experience traditional development attitudes of being there to ';show NGOs the way,'" Caldwell said. Alternatively, Ulysses promotes a "co-learning environment and explicitly works with participants on their personal development plans of what they want to learn from NGO partners."
Goals of Project Ulysses
- Identify and develop future leaders of PwC to take on senior leadership responsibilities at national and international levels within 5-10 years
- Build a global network of PwC leadership talent
- Increase PwC's capacity to capitalize on its diversity and transnational nature of operation
- Prepare leaders to guide the firm in a global world of ambiguity and tension between diverse interests and stakeholder groups
- Encourage the business sector to move towards a more responsible and sustainable business model
Lessons learned from Project Ulysses: one team-member's view
For PwC partner Brian McCann, several key learning points emerged from his Project Ulysses experience in Belize:
- Cultural differences should be an enabler, not an inhibitor. "The cultural differences of our team added to the quality, innovation and acceptance of our work. This learning point needs to continue to be a part of the PwC culture."
- Four partners without a defined leader came together as a team and delivered. "In Belize, our experience was that where there was collaboration, there was usually success."
- Leadership is about building sustained relationships. "What made our project successful was building relationships as a team, with our clients and with the other stakeholders."