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13 August 2024
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Story Anthony Mthembu
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Photo Sibahle Dayimani and Amandla Kulu
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.
Beyers Naudé challenge still stands – Dr Allan Boesak
2011-09-14
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Dineo Babili, a first-year Foundation-phase Education student, reading out her winning essay during the final Beyers Naudé Memorial Lecture held last Friday. Dineo and Siphesihle Mavundla (poetry) both won R3 000,00 each from Kagiso Trust.
Photo: Thabo Kessah
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The eighth Annual Beyers Naudé Memorial Lecture Series reached its climax with the third and last lecture being presented by Dr Allan Boesak at our Qwaqwa Campus on Friday, 9 September 2011. The first two lectures were presented by our Vice-Chancellor and Rector, Prof. Jonathan Jansen, and Prof. Kwandiwe Kondlo who heads our Centre for Africa Studies, respectively.
In his address, Dr Boesak posed hard-hitting questions, such as ‘'What kind of society do we want to be? At what price are we willing to sell the noble history of the struggle, the ideals and hopes of our people, the meaning of the freedom we sacrificed for?'’ He spoke fondly of his former friend and colleague who had appealed to the government of the day in 1973 to understand that the future security of our country did not lie with a consensus of white opinion, but rather ‘'a consensus of white and black opinion'’.
Dr Boesak said that Oom Bey had asked white people ‘to speak and act before it was too late’ and that he appealed to black people to prepare for the day on which they would be truly free.
‘'That was his hope. When he died, democracy had come, but this hope had not been realised and today we are in serious danger of losing it altogether. We have the matchless Freedom Charter; we have a most progressive Constitution; we have an impressive body of laws and we have enviable policy positions. However, the challenge from Beyers Naudé still stands and it comes to a new generation: it is time to transform words into deeds. The time for pious talk is over,'’ said Dr Boesak.
The lecture was well received by students and staff, as well as leaders and representatives from various sectors in the community. Learners and educators from a number of schools in the region also attended. Next year’s series will be hosted on the South Campus in Bloemfontein.