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13 August 2024 | Story Anthony Mthembu | Photo Sibahle Dayimani and Amandla Kulu
Prof Peter Rosseel
Prof Peter Roseel, Managing Director of Management Consulting and Research – a spin-off of the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium; and Prof Nicolene Barkhuizen, Director of the UFS Business School.

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

World renowned cardiothoracic surgeons convene at UFS
2010-03-14

World-renowned cardiothoracic surgeons from around the world will be the guests of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of the Free State (UFS) when a workshop for cardiothoracic surgeons is presented at the UFS Faculty of Health from Monday, 15 March to Wednesday, 17 March 2010.

The workshop is presented by the European Association of Cardiothoracic Surgery (EACTS), which focuses on development and training in Africa.

Prof. Francis Smit, Head of the UFS Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery and also member of the international cooperation committee of EACTS, says EACTS have selected the UFS, and specifically Bloemfontein, to be the site for their African Training and Education outreach. “We are extremely honoured by this after working at it for more than four years.”

Seven world-renowned cardiothoracic surgeons, including three former presidents of EACTS, will present the training courses in Bloemfontein from 15-17 March 2010. These surgeons are from the United States of America, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Scotland.

The European Cardiovascular Technologists are sending a perfusionist as well to present a perfusion workshop on Wednesday, 17 March 2010. The last day will be devoted to advanced surgical techniques.

The programme consists of a two-day scientific course that addresses research issues. All the invited speakers are well-known and established researchers. They all have been editors/editorial staff members of major international journals.

Prof. Smit says, “The knowledge transfer to South African surgeons can be phenomenal. Young and established surgeons can also meet the experts and improve their skills in conducting and successfully publish results.”

More than a hundred participants are expected for the workshops of the first two days, of which forty from abroad. The last day would be open registration and more than 150 people are expected.

Prof. Smit says, “This is a wonderful opportunity for us to educate, stimulate and teach surgeons in South Africa. It will add to their knowledge base and introduce them to high quality research methodology that will certainly have an impact on our research output. Hopefully this will be a bi-annual event where we can teach our academic community at a very focused and high level supported by EACTS.”

Media release
Issued by: Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt@ufs.ac.za  
12 March 2010
 

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