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Prof Peter Rosseel delivers guest lecture during UFS visit

13 August 2024 | Story Anthony Mthembu | Photo Sibahle Dayimani and Amandla Kulu

The Business School at the University of the Free State (UFS) hosted Prof Peter Rosseel, Managing Director of Management Consulting and Research – a spin-off of the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium – for a guest lecture during his visit to the UFS Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences (EMS).

The guest lecture took place on 19 July 2024 in the Business School Auditorium and was attended by academics from the UFS.

Reflecting on the lecture

The lecture presented by Prof Rosseel focused on how combining strategy, strategy implementation, culture transformation, leadership, and learning successfully leads to sustainable growth, creates engagement, and delivers tangible results. Throughout the lecture, Prof Rosseel spoke about how experts tend to make bad leaders and therefore stop change from happening within an organisation. In fact, he highlighted that, “Experts stop change from happening within the workplace because experts, by definition, look through the eyes of their expertise, but you cannot reduce the world to different forms of expertise, as it is holistic.” As such, he argued that to change an organisation, one must see things from the point of view of others.

Furthermore, Prof Rosseel delved deeper into the hierarchical operating model within organisations. He indicated that the above model should be one community within organisations; however, unfortunately it is not. This is because organisations are made up of several departments such as finance and human resources. As such, he regards these departments to be silos that could prove to be detrimental to organisations, as each silo can create its own culture as opposed to an organisational culture. These are some of the points he discussed throughout the lecture.

After the lecture concluded, the audience had the opportunity to engage with Prof Rosseel on his viewpoints. In fact, Lyle Markham, Academic Head of Department and Lecturer in Industrial Psychology at the UFS, was one of the audience members and described the lecture as insightful.

News Archive

UN-SPIDER expert appointed at UFS Risk Management Centre

2017-06-02

Description: Dr Joerg Szarzynski Tags: Dr Joerg Szarzynski

Dr Joerg Szarzynski, head of the EduSphere section
and Education Programme Director at the
United Nations University, Institute for Environment
and Human Security.
Photo: Supplied

“This new development will strengthen the long-lasting collaboration between DiMTEC and the United Nations University, Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) in Bonn in Germany. This [collaboration] goes back for almost a decade of joint training courses and increasingly also includes collaboration in the frame of scientific projects, especially in Africa.”

These were the words of Dr Joerg Szarzynski after his appointment as Affiliated Associate Professor to the Disaster Management Training and Education Centre for Africa (DiMTEC) at the University of the Free State (UFS). Dr Szarzynski will assume his new position with immediate effect.

The United Nations University (UNU) is a global thinktank and postgraduate teaching organisation headquartered in Japan.

Dr Szarzynski, head of the EduSphere section and Education Programme Director at UNU-EHS, brings with him a wealth of experience, including serving as senior expert to the United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER). Within the team, he was principal desk officer for Africa responsible for relief activities after natural disasters, technical consultation, information management, collaborative network development and the cluster on health and climate change adaptation. He also has broad expertise in climatology and remote sensing, global environmental change research, capacity-building and web-based data and information management.

“Dr Szarzynski’s appointment brings
new research opportunities.”

Lecture focus on vulnerability and disaster risk reduction
As part of his new academic responsibilities, Dr Szarzynski will conduct face-to-face lectures during a course on vulnerability and disaster risk-reduction. With this course the centre aims to increase awareness of the complexity and importance of vulnerability and resilience in the field of disaster risk management. Dr Szarzynski’s teachings will focus on Early Warning Systems and Geospatial Technologies in Support of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Emergency Response Preparedness. He will also lead courses on Assessment and Coordination in International Disaster Management and Humanitarian Response and Information Technology in Disaster Risk Reduction and Disaster Management.

Furthermore he will give lectures via distance learning for the wider curriculum at DiMTEC.

Collaboration between DiMTEC and UNU
Dr Andries Jordaan, Director of DiMTEC at the UFS said: “His appointment opens new networks within the United Nations system, which brings new research opportunities. Furthermore, his expertise is important to us. He has already provided input and delivered lectures through Skype in the course of Information Technology and Communication.”

Dr Szarzynski has been lecturing for the past 10 years in the UFS’ international PhD curriculum.

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