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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

Living proof of transformation

2012-07-18

Prof. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela (middle) facilitated a dialogue with Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and Prof. Mark Solms on the Transformation in the Solms-Delta Wine Estate.
Photo: Johan Roux
18 July 2012

“We have the capacity to make a success of South Africa. We have incredible people who refuse to leave the country and want to make a difference.” This is according to Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu who was speaking at the University of the Free State (UFS) today.

Dr Tutu took part in a dialogue with Prof. Mark Solms, owner of the Solms-Delta wine estate in Franschhoek.Prof. Solms is also an A-rated scholar and the Head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Cape Town.The theme of the dialogue was “Living Reconciliation: Winds of Change in Franschhoek and Transformation at Solms-Delta Wine Estate”.

Prof. Solms led an initiative to transform the lives of farm workers on the estate through the Wijn-de Caab Trust. This initiative was extended to empower the wider community of farm dwellers when Prof. Solms co-founded the Delta Trust and the Franschhoek Valley Transformation Charter.

The dialogue was the second in the Dialogue between Science and Society series and was facilitated by Prof. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Senior research professor on Trauma, Forgiveness and Reconciliation at the UFS. The Dialogue series aims to inspire new ways of thinking about responsible citizenship. It also highlights the unique and important ways of engaging with the critical issues of social equality, social justice, social transformation and reconciliation in South Africa.This morning Dr Tutu said the work done in the Franschhoek community is proof that people cannot prosper alone if others are also not prospering. “We belong together. Why did it take us so long to realise it? South Africans have the capacity to make South Africa a better place. It is unacceptable that people go hungry and go to school under trees. It is unacceptable that they still have no books in the third term, and that the pass rate is 30%.

“Is this why we struggled, why people died? We want to go to our graves smiling… we will not be allowed peace and stability if we do not attend to the problems.”

Prof. Solms said the miracle of the political transformation did not trickle down to the people. A lot has been done, but much more needs to be done. “It can only be done by us. It is not the government’s responsibility. The way we live as a result of apartheid is that we are a deeply divided society. We must recognise this and do something to change it.”

He encouraged people to think “small”. An individual cannot change the whole country, but the changes in his community are there to see.

Dr Tutu also congratulated the UFS on becoming a truly South African university, recognising the transformation of the past few years.

The dialogue was presented at the Global Leadership Summit that 250 students and academic leaders from 21 international universities are participating in. The summit runs until Friday 20 July 2012.

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