Running head: THE YOUNG CHANGE AGENTS 1
Definition of Proposal
-What are the biggest challenges for change agents like Shaw in driving a grassroots et al.
change (as in this case, sustainability)?
-What are the personal characteristics, attitudes, and qualities most needed to be successful at
doing this?
As a young self-motivated employee, James Shaw joined the Learning and Education
group of Price Waterhouse Coopers in February 1998 (Jick & Peiperl, 2011). 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). This proposal will review how a midlevel employee can still impact
successful change for an organization. It will also review the characteristics of Shaw and others
who impressed Senior Level managers. They were able to form a sustainability initiative and
became part of the firm’s overall strategy group by using techniques they learned at AIESEC.
Shaw and his colleagues did face challenges at PwC, and certain characteristics, and skills helped
make them successful. Finally, there will be recommendations on a few solution and theory
suggestions to achieve organizational success during change.
Defining the Problem
-How effective have they been to date at PwC?
THE YOUNG CHANGE AGENTS 2
After being recruited from AIESEC, a well known student organization, Middleburg and
Shaw were brought on to support PwC. Shaw worked in a position of executive leadership for
AIESEC. Now, that he was at PwC, he was noticing the large differences between his previous
company and current company. Shaw spoke about how AIESEC had the challenge of budget;
“Imagine having to develop a strategy to recruit, train, motivate, direct, and retain staff without
the luxury of paying them" (Jick & Peiperl, 2011, p.463). Shaw was shocked by the amount of
money that PwC had to spend, but he felt that he could teach PwC a few tricks from his past
experience at AIESEC.
After evaluating the values of PwC and the research conducted, Middleburg and Shaw
were not satisfied. They approached supervisor Keith Bell, to propose some changes. Among
their many ideas, Middleburg and Shaw proposed the company to move away from being profit
