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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

A journey into self-discovery

2011-08-17

Sandy Little

The launch of the film and book Africa meets Africa: Pathways through the Interior at our university was a huge success.

It forms part of the The Africa meets Africa Project that is known for making connections between knowledge systems in pursuit of learning. It integrates amongst others beadwork and weaving with mathematics.

The film takes one through the Free State and some parts of the Northern Cape. The two actors, Mr Lerato Mokhitli and Ms Sandy Little, are both art students at Kovsies. During the trip they reveal some historic events not known to all. Prof. Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector, said: “Our history is a lot more complex and interesting than current texts allow. Much of what happened laid the foundations for trauma, and triumph is poorly understood. More so, is the history of the ordinary.”

The film and book are funded by National Heritage Council and FirstRand. It was launched in other provinces, among them KwaZulu-Natal. The Africa meets Africa Project aims to use the book in the Free State and Northern Cape in the Further Education and Training (FET) phase for educators and university students.

Prof. Jansen furthermore said: “I would definitely recommend the book with some additions, such as representation of excluded cultures. This would include white ethnographic histories and cultures and the intersections across black/white, African/European histories. I would also make the subject history compulsory to ensure that children would be exposed to our complex history.”

Ms Moipone Kabaoe, a third-year B.Soc.Sc. student at UFS, said: “The film was very informative and clarified some things. I also believe the actors have actually grown from the experience and they did a great job.”

Mrs Anna Mokhitli was ecstatic at the launch, as any proud mother would be. “I knew they were working so hard, but I never thought it would be something this big,” she said. Ms Helene Smuts, Director of Africa meets Africa, said: “You cannot learn until you start with what you know. This is the journey we took; now you must take your own.”

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