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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

New building for Centre for Financial Planning Law

2012-04-23

A graphic illustration of the new building for the Centre for Financial Planning Law.
19 April 2012

During a recent tree planting ceremony, the Centre for Financial Planning Law in the Faculty of Law officially handed over the site for a new building for the centre. The building should be complete by the end of 2012.

The Centre for Financial Planning Law’s present premises has become too small for the needs of the centre, thus a decision was taken to build a new building.

The centre, which was opened in 2001 with three staff members, grew during the past 11 years to a centre with 13 permanent staff members. Some 1 300 students – 120 undergraduate and 1 200 postgraduate students in the Postgraduate Diploma in Financial Planning Law and the Advanced Postgraduate Diploma in Financial Planning Law respectively – are enrolled at the centre. Undergraduate students attend weekly contact sessions while the postgraduate students all study electronically through distance education.

According to Mr Rudolf Bitzer of Bitzer Design Studio, one of the two architecture firms involved in the development of the building, the new building was planned in order to to make provision for future extensions. “The opportunity for the centre to function independently was important from the beginning and facilities had to be positioned in such a way that the lecture hall and committee room could be hired out commercially when lectures were not being presented.

“The building consists of a large reception venue, which gives access to a lecture hall (which can be subdivided), a committee room, public amenities and a reception counter. The centre will present about ten lectures annually in its own building and the lecture hall can accommodate 80 students. Exams will also be written in the venue,” said Mr Bitzer.

The usable inside area of the building totals 827 square metres.

The staff function in their own section of the building, with the offices arranged around a courtyard. Security access makes it a secure environment. In addition, staff have access to a staff room with a service hatch to the reception room, reception counter, personal assistant’s office, nine individual offices and a large open plan office, a storeroom, a cleaners’ room and facilities for staff.

“With the design, an attempt was made to make the building stand comfortably in the landscape without disappearing into the natural landscape. It is an unpretentious building, which seeks to provide well articulated architecture,” said Mr Bitzer.

The architecture firms involved are Bitzer Design Studio and Roodt Architects.

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