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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

UFS chemist invited by UNESCO to present lecture at World Science Forum in Budapest

2015-12-07

From the left are: Dr Jean-Paul Ngome Abiaga from UNESCO, France; Abdoulaye Ibrahim, also from UNESCO in France; and Truidie Venter, a young scientist from the Department of Chemistry at the UFS.
Photo: Supplied

Dr Truidie Venter, a young scientist from Inorganic Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at the University of the Free State (UFS), returned recently from presenting a lecture at the 7th World Science Forum, held in Budapest, Hungary. She was one of the few young researchers world-wide who were invited to attend the forum.

In her capacity as a young female researcher from Africa, Truidie was invited by UNESCO to present her views on science in diplomacy at this event. Her talk focused on collaboration between researchers from different countries, and the challenges faced by young researchers in Africa, and served to initiate discussions between young researchers concerning international, interdisciplinary scientific cooperation.

The Science Forum, an international conference dedicated to science and knowledge, was held in Budapest from 4-7 November 2015. This interdisciplinary gathering is supported by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the International Council for Science (ICSU), and other partners, and is aimed at providing an occasion for representatives of science, politics, international organisations, industrial and financial decision makers, international science forums, and science academies to meet and exchange views.

More than nine hundred delegates from 108 countries took part in this event. The speakers included Her Royal Majesty Princess Sumaya Bint El Hassan, President of the Royal Scientific Society of Jordan, Dr Irina Bokova, the Director-General of UNESCO, Prof Sir Peter Gluckman, first Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Prof Ene Ergma, former President of the Riigikogu (Estonian Parliament), and Ms Naledi Pandor, Minister of Science and Technology of South Africa.

At the conclusion of the forum, a declaration was accepted regarding the renewal of the scientific community’s commitment to the responsible and ethical use of scientific knowledge in addressing the grand challenges of humankind. This declaration addressed the headings of climate change, new sustainable development paths, disaster risk reduction, scientific advice for policies, international collaboration for capacity-building and mobilisation in the developing world, and balanced investment in science.

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