For our second 'Tomorrow's Adaptive Organisation' roundtable, Ian Powell, senior partner and chairman of PwC UK, shared his vision of leadership and culture with us.  Ian Powell told his story of being a leader in a professional services firm – how he is a ‘lifer’ at PwC, and gradually moved up through the organisation until he became chairman of the UK firm in 2008. Through his different experiences in varying roles, he developed his leadership approach based on authenticity and integrity.  The first part of the report develops his vision and culture of PwC, aiming to be iconic – ‘the number one in professional services, always front of mind’. The second part  focuses on the alignment between behaviours and values.

The financial crises of the last decade have demonstrated serious shortcomings in the understanding of corporate business models, the alignment of incentives, and the management of risk. The current corporate reporting model has not highlighted where these shortcomings exist. This failing is exacerbated by the pace of change of business today, with a plethora of new challenges impacting long-term success, including a shift in the global balance of power, resource constraints and climate change.

The Ubuntu Declaration is the product of the recent Emergency Congress, with Rights and Humanity, the South African Human Rights Commission and Tomorrow's Company. The Declaration sets out a holistic and systemic policy framework for what to do now to protect the world's poorest peoples, how to reform the global financial system, and how to create the conditions for sustainable development and effective growth. It starts by recognising  - as we would describe it - the importance of 'the triple context': that we all need to bring the economic, social and environmental systems into balance. The Ubuntu declaration consciously and clearly argues for the alignment of the development agenda alongside tackling the climate crunch, the credit crunch  and the threat to  biodiversity.   Amongst other things It calls for one third - $750bn - or current world stimulus packages to be focussed to the green agenda: recongising that this will be the most efficient in creating jobs and building a...