Hi team, I had a great exploratory conversation with Hannelie Minnaar, the Assistant Registrar at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) this morning. I invited her to interact with us on this opportunity via our blogger so that these ideas can get a life of their own…as they usually do as soon as we start working through them.
The opportunity is this: To transform higher education in South Africa. The TUT understand the fact that we are entering a new world where relationships are critical and they want to totally transform themselves into a client-centered learning institution. Top management already bought into this although the new university Principle will only be appointed in the next two weeks or so. The opportunity is open for TomorrowToday to partner with the TUT throughout this process. They want to develop individuals that will be relevant and successful in the workplace of the future and they want us to help them on this journey.

Graeme, when she gave me her presentation it almost felt as if I was back at Spellbound again. It is the same dream, just much bigger, much more practical and much more focused on the South African student – not only the richest of the rich.
Let’s ask some questions:

Is it possible to develop people for the future? I believe it is. This is what I spent the last five years on.

What does it mean, in practice? It means that lecturers should become facilitators. It means that we really need to make the student’s agenda our agenda.

Yes, we know all the pure theories about relational approaches to people development, but is it feasible? Can one take this relational approach and still make money? Of course it’s possible – I think we can help them with strategies and ideas to start imagining this new reality – a reality that strives towards the ultimate student development while still making business sense.

Where do we fit in? This sounds huge, won’t it totally suck us in? I think we need to grow into this as we do with any long-standing relationship. We can certainly add a lot of value from a strategic point of view. We can also facilitate WOW-workshops throughout the departments to create further buy-in and generate ideas from the lower levels. We can help lecturers to develop their facilitation ability. We can coach coaches. But for a start, we can just engage with them and see how the relationship takes on form.
I invited them to our Showcase of next week. Please throw a few ideas around through commenting to this blog. Hannelie will also comment from her side as she reads our ideas and inputs. Go go go!!

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