Inside The Business Schools
Building new understandings (part IV final)
Professor IN Moutlana, Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Vaal University of Technology
Another challenge facing institution and organisation leaders in our transformation efforts is not knowing which paths future developments will take. While in the past ‘qualifications’ were adequate for the labour market, and conditions governing life and work seemed relatively stable, the increasing unemployment rates and the increasing pace of change of technology dealt a deadly blow to the idea of a skill learned in youth and lasting for life. This resulted in industry calling for a skilled labour force putting ‘skill’ high on the transformative agenda of the Government, to counterbalance the negative effects of globalisation.
The challenge of new technologies has facilitated revolutionary changes in social organisations, systems, families, workplaces, churches and educational institutions. While ‘knowledge’ as dominant property played an important role, it did not serve as the driving force behind the evolution of the political economy. O n the contrary, economic success is largely determined by the ‘quality’ and relevance of the ‘information’ one possesses. Thus, successfully transformed organisations are those that are innovative and capable of constantly reinventing themselves to better service the needs of society.
Workplaces do not just change in appearance but, more fundamentally, change where and how one contributes to its growth and development. This kind of revolutionary change requires a new kind of leadership, namely: an entrepreneurial leader – a visionary leader (why is change happening?) – who knows where the power lies in the organisation (who will support the change?) – imaginative, creative, innovative – have the ability to motivate people to follow and dedicate themselves to a lifelong pursuit of knowledge. He must be able to manage knowledge
(i.e. how do you manage success).
Leadership and information society
The challenges of our information society will require new skills and capabilities and even new ways of obtaining these skills, and reinforcing these on a continuous basis. Coupled with this, it would also appear that graduations have become ways in which institutions actually, bid farewell to their graduates, saying ‘goodbye’ to their best customers rather than turning them into lifelong learning partners. This mode of ‘one-time-education’ has a decreasing relevance in the world and the workplace (Doris & Botkin 1995).
Opportunities offered by new technologies are their ‘liberating effect’ to both education and business leaders, where both visionary leaders and their organisations are not confined or determined by time and physical space. (Hence the notions of virtual classrooms/universities). This on-demand learning is fast emerging as a norm and a challenging threat to those organisations structured around time and space. Technology-resistant leadership that does not make this transition timeously will be consigned to the pages of history by a new generation competitor. The impact of globalisation cannot be managed by an individual.
Networking-choice types of partnerships have become the greatest challenges to leaders in the transformation of South Africa.
Business and education
Occupations or workplaces are exacting requirements of knowledge and skills, that are changing faster than people are able to change and, as such, lay claim on institutions of higher learning for up-to-date education and skills training, calling for a highly relevant and skilled workforce.
Among the most important challenges impacting on transformation is the increasing influence of big business on schools and tertiary institutions at all levels. Institutional leaders are witnessing a ‘remarkable business offensive’ in which the education system is slowly being drawn more and more into the ideological orbit of the corporation and its needs. ‘What’s good for business is good for the country and its people’ may not be very good for the educational policies or educational ethos. The quest for technical or administration knowledge so often needed by business can lead to the sponsorship of certain kinds of students, over privileging of specific forms of knowledge resulting in that ‘invisible hand’ of the market to regulate whatever needs doing, by promising to provide for the common good. This process is not only politically naïve, but can degenerate into a dangerous social ethic, namely that of substituting private gain hidden under the rhetoric of democracy and personal choice for public good. The challenge lies in that business plans can inadvertently commodify education where educational management can easily lose control of the curriculum, the pedagogy, as the ideologies and practices of business management penetrate into the heart of many classrooms.
According to Bird 2002, another serious challenge to transformation is due to the wide skills gap the transformation leaders have to address. This is a dual challenge of enhancing business performance while also delivering against socio-political imperatives. However, tapping into individual talent/potential can prove counter-productive if working and living environments remain unchanged. There is, thus, an appeal to all of us to accelerate development and capacity building. We must not rely on compliance with the law to effect change and transformation. Successful transformation implementation will be determined by the following:
- think and act in sync;
- harness people power; and
- communicate, be practical and flexible.
Furthermore, the challenge of the explosion of knowledge is making it more difficult to find the right way to frame our work worlds. Forms of information management that worked years back are now obsolete. The information revolution, the globalisation of economics, the proliferation of events that undermine all our certainties, the collapse of grand ideologies – all these shocks have overturned the rules of the game. Effectiveness deteriorates when managers and leaders and professionals cannot rethink/ redesign, reframe.
Institutions and organisations that will step up to this process of embracing Government’s transformative agenda of change will thrive. Those that bury their heads in the sand, that rigidly defend the status quo, or even worse, some idyllic vision of a past that never existed, are at a very great risk, and those that are micro-managed either from within by faculty politics or governing bodies, or from outside by government or public opinion, stand little of chance of flourishing during a time of great change and transformation.
Hubert Humphrey states: 'The soundest and most productive investment a nation can make is in the education of its people. I have never heard of a nation that went bankrupt in investing in education, or of a community that has become insolvent by investing in it. However, I have heard of States and civilisations that have become dormant, obsolete, non-productive and insolvent because they failed to take care of their human resources by investing in education.'
As higher education is entering into yet another uncertain/turbulent era through mergers, your support in forging closer and new formations and partnerships will become more important and strategic for the continued existence of a sought-after university and a region that will step up to align itself boldly to our country’s maxim of
'a better life for all.'
Tel: (016) 950-9275
Email: moutlana@vut.ac.za
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