Author: Malema Seroba

In an era defined by complexity, ambiguity, and accelerating change, the role of Human Resources (HR) is undergoing a fundamental shift. No longer confined to policy, process, or compliance only, HR is increasingly called upon to act as a strategic sense-maker within the organisations, connecting people, purpose, performance, and ecosystem dynamics.

This was the central premise of a recent leadership activation session facilitated by The DaVinci Institute’s Chief Executive Officer, Prof Ben Anderson, delivered to Krones HR professionals. Rather than offering prescriptive models or best-practice checklists, the session created a reflective space for HR leaders to interrogate how they think, decide, and lead within a complex organisational system.

Self-Leadership as the Starting Point

The workshop opened with a deliberate focus on self-leadership activation, positioning HR professionals not merely as service providers but as strategic business partners. Prof Anderson challenged participants to reflect on their prevailing thinking patterns and leadership posture, asking a critical question: Are we merely collecting dots, or are we meaningfully connecting them?

This distinction proved pivotal. Collecting dots speaks to data accumulation, policies, metrics, and reports. Connecting dots, by contrast, requires interpretation, judgement, and courage, the ability to see patterns, relationships, and implications across the organisation. For HR, this marks the transition from operational responsiveness to intentional, strategic leadership.

He further challenged the participants to decide whether they want to identify as nine dots or nine dots plus professional, who will go out of their way and beyond what is known to resolve complex challenges. 

Sense-Making as a Strategic HR Capability

Building on this foundation, the session explored sense-making as a core HR capability. In complex organisations like Krones, workforce realities are rarely linear or self-explanatory. Data alone does not equal insight.

Prof Anderson emphasised that HR’s strategic value lies in its ability to interpret human and organisational signals, engagement trends, leadership behaviours, cultural tensions, and capability gaps and translate them into coherent strategic meaning. Sense-making enables HR leaders to move beyond reacting to symptoms and instead address underlying systemic dynamics.

Whole-Brain Decision Performance: Cynefin Framework

A critical element of the session focused on whole-brain decision performance. Participants examined how different modes of brain functioning, cognitive, emotional, and intuitive, shape decision-making and influence stakeholder outcomes.

The insight here was not about choosing emotion over logic, or vice versa, but about integration. HR decisions that ignore emotional and relational dimensions risk resistance and disengagement; decisions that neglect analytical rigour risk misalignment and inefficiency. Optimising performance, therefore, requires conscious awareness of how decisions are formed and experienced across the organisation.

Navigating Agreement, Disagreement, and Tension

As the session progressed, attention turned to social engagement dynamics, particularly the role of agreement and disagreement in organisational life. Rather than treating conflict as a dysfunction, Prof Anderson reframed it as a natural and often productive feature of adaptive systems.

HR leaders were encouraged to build capacity for managing tension, holding divergent views, and facilitating alignment without forcing consensus. This capability is increasingly critical in environments where transformation, restructuring, and innovation place pressure on relationships and trust.

Participants were urged to embrace the shadow and know themselves and whether their strengths are. 

Thinking Ecosystemically at Krones

A key shift occurred as participants began mapping HR’s influence across the Krones ecosystem. Moving beyond functional boundaries, the discussion explored how energy, decision-making, and cultural signals flow across roles, teams, leadership layers, and geographies.

This ecosystemic perspective reframed HR as a systemic enabler, shaping conditions for performance, learning, and adaptation rather than controlling outcomes. It reinforced the idea that HR’s impact is often indirect but deeply influential.

Adaptive Leadership and Mode 2 Thinking

The session culminated in a deep dive into adaptive leadership in complexity, drawing on Mode 2 thinking, a way of engaging challenges where problems are ill-defined, solutions are emergent, and cause-and-effect relationships are unclear.

For HR professionals, this means resisting the urge to prematurely simplify complexity or default to familiar tools. Instead, adaptive leadership requires experimentation, reflection, dialogue, and the capacity to act without full certainty. It is less about having the right answers and more about asking better questions.

A Strategic Repositioning of HR

Taken together, the session facilitated by Prof Ben Anderson represented more than a leadership workshop. It marked a strategic repositioning of HR, from function to sense-maker, from administrator to adaptive leader, and from siloed expertise to ecosystemic influence.

For Krones HR professionals, the session reinforced a critical truth: in complex organisational environments, the future of HR lies not in doing more, but in seeing more clearly, thinking more deeply, and leading more consciously.

As part of the tt 100 Business Innovation Awards, the Structured Incubated Entrepreneurial Development Programme for Food Producers and Food Manufacturers has reached its close-out phase in the North West province, marking a meaningful milestone in strengthening youth-led agribusiness across Tswaing Local Municipality and Ratlou Local Municipality.

More than a programme conclusion, the close-out represents a shift in how emerging food producers understand and operate their businesses, moving from project activity to structured enterprise thinking.

A Programme Designed For Real Business Growth

Across South Africa’s agricultural sector, many emerging farmers face a familiar challenge. Progress is often limited not by effort or technical ability, but by gaps in strategic thinking, business literacy and confidence. Entrepreneurs frequently begin with strongly underfunded agreements, yet struggle to sustain operations beyond the first year.

This programme was intentionally designed to close that gap.

Through a structured, execution-focused approach, participants developed stronger strategic thinking, clearer business positioning, improved financial and operational discipline, and deeper systems awareness across agricultural value chains. Rather than relying on theory alone, the programme encouraged entrepreneurs to run their ventures such as real businesses, building structure, decision-making capability and long-term sustainability.

Evidence Of A Mindset Shift

During the North West close-out engagement, participants presented their agribusinesses with noticeably stronger clarity, structure and confidence. Product showcases and business presentations reflected measurable progress in how entrepreneurs position, communicate and manage their enterprises.

Participant reflections highlighted this transformation.

“I see things differently now. Engaging with other students and teachers made me realise that we learn every day. Some things I have been doing are wrong compared to what others do in their business,” said Puseletso Joyce Lipali, working across crop production, livestock and poultry.

For many participants, the shift was not only technical, but it was also cognitive.

“The programme has been a total mindset shift for me. I am more strategic, confident, and aware of my strengths. It pushed me out of my comfort zone, and I am seeing the results in my business and personal life,” said Teboho Mofolo, an emerging crop and livestock farmer.

The close-out demonstrated that structured entrepreneurship development can change how entrepreneurs think, not just what they know.

Partnership-Driven Delivery

The programme’s impact was strengthened through coordinated collaboration between municipal, provincial, academic and community stakeholders. Key partners included student business coach JP Le Roux, the North West Department of Agriculture, the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, the African Farmers’ Association of South Africa (AFASA), North-West University (Animal Science), the North West Department of Health (Ratlou Sub-District), and Khunwana Community Library.

The engagement took place at Setlagole Farm Guest House, reinforcing the programme’s community-embedded and practical learning approach.

From Learning To Market Visibility

Running since March, the programme concludes in February with a Food Festival and Graduation, a market-facing milestone connecting entrepreneurs to buyers, development partners and support networks.

This final phase converts learning into visible business evidence. It shows enterprises that are trading more consistently, refining their pricing strategies, strengthening their market positioning, and building customer relationships. The close-out, therefore, signals a clear transition from training to execution.

Strengthening Rural Economies Through Structured Entrepreneurship

The Structured Incubated Entrepreneurial Development Programme contributes to broader rural development priorities by supporting businesses capable of consistent participation in local and regional food systems.

It strengthens youth entrepreneurship pathways, stimulates local economic activity, supports sustainable agribusiness development and contributes to community food security. The North West close-out ultimately demonstrates what becomes possible when entrepreneurship development is structured, collaborative, and execution focused.

It reflects a growing recognition that rural enterprise ecosystems are strengthened not only through funding or skills training, but through disciplined business thinking, enabling emerging food producers to build enterprises that endure, grow and contribute meaningfully to their communities.

On 19 February 2026, the academic community of The DaVinci Institute gathered for its formal Academic Opening, marking the start of the 2026 academic year under the theme “Co-Creating for the Greater Good.” The ceremony signaled a collective commitment to purpose-driven education, collaborative leadership, and the ongoing evolution of the institution’s academic, research and technological agenda.

Tradition and Purpose

The morning began with the academic procession, accompanied by Jozi Opera, setting a tone of reflection and anticipation. The ceremony included the flag hoisting, symbolising institutional identity, national responsibility and the shared values underpinning DaVinci’s learning community.

The congregation was formally constituted by Dr Gavin Isaacs, acting in his capacity as Chairperson of Senate, establishing the gathering as a lawful academic congregation of the Institute.

Leadership voices frame the year ahead

Programme Director Prof Benjamin Anderson guided the ceremony, introducing institutional leaders, governance structures and the wider learning ecosystem, including Board members, Senate, faculty, students, industry partners and convocation.

Institutional leadership, including President Edward Kieswetter and Board Chair Ndumiso Khubeka, reinforced the Institute’s strategic focus on responsible leadership and societal contribution.

Articulating the meaning of the Greater Good

The central moment of the ceremony was the keynote address delivered by Ndumiso Khubeka, which explored the underlying principles of the Greater Good, positioning education not only as capability development but as a platform for impact.

The address highlighted:

• Leadership as stewardship
• Innovation as a societal responsibility
• Collaboration as the foundation of complex problem-solving
• The role of higher education in shaping ethical decision-makers

This framing aligned closely with DaVinci’s long-standing emphasis on systems thinking, transdisciplinary learning and organisational transformation.

Institutional achievements unveiled

The Academic Opening also served as a platform for key institutional launches. The Unified Technology Upgrade, introduced by Executive: Information Technology Riaan van Niekerk, highlighted continued investment in the digital learning environment and infrastructure supporting hybrid, practice-based education. The launch of the DaVinci song further strengthened institutional identity and community culture.

In addition, the research report launch, presented by Executive Dean Dr Gavin Isaacs, reflected the Institute’s growing postgraduate scholarship footprint and its commitment to applied, industry-relevant research.

Setting the tone for 2026

The Academic Opening reaffirmed The DaVinci Institute’s positioning as a learning institution oriented toward purpose, partnership and impact.

Under the theme Co-Creating for the Greater Good, the ceremony did more than open an academic calendar. It established a shared intention: that education, research and leadership development must actively contribute to organisations, communities and society. In this way, the event marked both a beginning and a reaffirmation of a continuing institutional journey.

The DaVinci Institute is pleased to announce the release of its Research Report 2025, a comprehensive reflection of the Institute’s scholarly output, intellectual direction, and continued commitment to research that creates meaningful impact across organisations, industries, and society.

The report presents a rich body of postgraduate research conducted across doctoral, master’s, postgraduate diploma, and undergraduate levels. It highlights how research at DaVinci is intentionally positioned as applied, transdisciplinary, and work-based, designed not only to contribute to academic knowledge but to resolve real challenges faced by professionals, organisations, and broader ecosystems.

A Comprehensive Overview of DaVinci’s Applied, Work-Based, and Transdisciplinary Research

Central to the Research Report 2025 is the Institute’s research philosophy: enabling leaders and managers to develop advanced research capability while producing innovative, practical, and contextually relevant solutions. Across programmes, students explore complex issues such as digital transformation, employability, entrepreneurship, knowledge management, infrastructure delivery, cybersecurity, township economic development, sector skills planning, and leadership development. These research contributions demonstrate the growing importance of scholarship that bridges theory and practice in an increasingly uncertain and rapidly evolving world.

Doctoral Research: Advancing Frameworks, Models, and Methodologies

The report documents significant doctoral research that advances new frameworks, models, and methodologies addressing systemic challenges. From innovation management measurement and integrated business analytics frameworks for infrastructure projects to employability design, entrepreneurial behaviour in resource-constrained environments, and knowledge management in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the doctoral portfolio illustrates the Institute’s focus on research that generates original contributions with practical value.

Master’s, Postgraduate Diploma, and Undergraduate Research in Action

Master’s research further expands this impact by examining workplace productivity, digital fraud investigation, service quality, organisational adaptation, learning transfer, and performance management. At the postgraduate diploma level, work-based research projects provide direct organisational insight, tackling challenges ranging from digital transformation and customer experience to project delivery, leadership practice, skills gaps, and emerging technology integration. Undergraduate research continues this trajectory by addressing real workplace challenges, reinforcing the Institute’s long-standing commitment to applied learning.

Strengthening the Research Ecosystem

Beyond individual studies, the Research Report 2025 reflects the strength of the Institute’s research ecosystem. The report highlights publications in accredited journals, scholarly book contributions, peer-reviewed activities, and structured research development workshops supporting master’s and doctoral candidates. These initiatives ensure academic rigour while strengthening student progression, research quality, and scholarly engagement.

Institutional Growth and Strategic Partnerships

The year also marked important institutional developments. Enhancements within the Research Office strengthened research processes, supported improved student experience, and contributed to successful graduation outcomes across programmes. The Institute also continued its engagement with key academic and professional networks, including the South African Business Schools Association, the African Association of Business Schools, and the South African Private Higher Education Association, reinforcing its commitment to advancing scholarly dialogue across South Africa and the continent.

The Research Report 2025 ultimately stands as more than an annual record of outputs. It represents a collective intellectual journey involving students, supervisors, alumni, industry partners, and academic leadership. It captures the evolving role of research in enabling professionals to rethink assumptions, challenge existing paradigms, and co-create new possibilities in contexts defined by disruption and transformation.

Through this report, The DaVinci Institute reaffirms its commitment to research that is relevant, rigorous, and impactful, research that strengthens leadership, advances innovation, and contributes to the greater good.

Postgraduate research is often treated as a technical exercise, a proposal to submit, a thesis or a dissertation to defend, or a qualification to complete. Yet as the room settled on the first morning at DaVinci House, it became clear that this gathering would challenge that assumption.

“Are you writing to pass or are you writing to influence?” asked Prof Ben Anderson, CEO of The DaVinci Institute.

The silence that followed was not uncertainty; it was recognition.

The two-day research workshop, convened by South African Private Higher Education (SAPHE) and proudly sponsored by ETDP SETA, brought together postgraduate scholars and academic leaders from across SAPHE member institutions. Present in the room were representatives from The Independent Institute of Education, INSCAPE, Foundation for Professional Development, IMM Graduate School, Eduvos, and The DaVinci Institute.

What unfolded over the two days was less a technical seminar and more an intellectual reset.

Day One: Confronting the Researcher Within

Day One opened with energy, curiosity, and at times, discomfort. Participants were invited to interrogate how they approach postgraduate research.

Some indicated that they realised they have been writing cautiously. One participant reflected during a roundtable exchange: “Almost as if I am asking permission to have a perspective.”

Another added, “I start from my professional practice, but I often struggle to translate that lived experience into scholarly argument.”

The discussion revealed a shared tension: many researchers approach postgraduate study with deep professional insight, yet hesitate to claim authority in academic spaces.

Prof Anderson challenged the group to move beyond compliance-driven research. Finding one’s scholarly voice, he argued, requires intellectual courage, the willingness to position oneself clearly within theory, methodology, and argument.

The room was animated, notebooks open, ideas crossing tables, debates forming and reforming. By mid-afternoon, conversations had shifted from “How do I complete this?” to “What am I really trying to change?”

Research Across Systems: From Micro to Macro Influence

A defining moment of the workshop came as the conversation expanded beyond individual theses to systemic influence. Participants mapped their potential impact across interconnected systems:

• Microsystem: their immediate classrooms, teams, and professional environments.
• Mesosystem: their institutions and collaborative networks.
• Exosystem: sector bodies and professional communities.
• Macrosystem: national policy and societal transformation.

The shift was refined but powerful: research was no longer framed as an endpoint, but as an intervention.

Day Two: From Concept to Completion

While Day One focused on identity and positioning, Day Two turned to craft and coherence. The workshop moved deliberately through the full research lifecycle, refining research questions, aligning methodology, interrogating theoretical frameworks, ensuring ethical integrity, and strengthening the logical progression from data to argument.

“Everything must speak to everything else. Your research problem, your theory, your method, they must form a coherent conversation,” Prof Anderson emphasised.

Participants worked through real examples, challenging one another’s assumptions, refining questions, and testing methodological fit. The energy had shifted from uncertainty to clarity. By the close of the second day, the tone in the room had changed. What began as a cautious inquest had evolved into confident articulation.

A Collective Commitment to Research Maturity

As organiser, SAPHE demonstrated the power of convening diverse private higher education institutions around a shared commitment to research excellence. The presence of multiple member institutions reinforced a broader message: postgraduate scholarship within the private higher education sector is deepening in maturity and influence.

The sponsorship by ETDP SETA further highlighted the strategic importance of building research capability within South Africa’s education and training ecosystem.

Beyond Compliance, Towards Influence

By the end of the workshop, one message stood out clearly: postgraduate research within SAPHE institutions is not peripheral; it is central to shaping practice, informing policy, and strengthening the credibility of private higher education.

As one participant concluded:

“We are not just producing dissertations or theses. We are producing knowledge that can move systems.”

Through initiatives such as this workshop, SAPHE continues to cultivate scholars who are not only academically rigorous but systemically aware, researchers prepared to contribute meaningfully at micro, meso, exo, and macro levels of influence.

On 16 and 17 February 2026, a new group of leaders from DSV gathered for their face-to-face onboarding at The DaVinci Institute. While it marked the start of a Higher Certificate in Technology Management and Innovation, it also reflected something more significant: the continued strengthening of a partnership between DSV and DaVinci, one built on trust, shared values and measurable impact.

This is not a once-off collaboration. It is an evolving relationship grounded in the belief that organisational transformation begins with intentional leadership development.

A Shared Commitment to Talent Development

The DSV programme represents a strategic investment in people identified as having high potential across the organisation. Drawing participants from multiple regions, Gqeberha, Cape Town, Durban and Gauteng, the initiative reinforces DSV’s commitment to building interconnected leadership capacity across its national footprint.

Rather than treating development as an isolated HR intervention, DSV positions this qualification as part of its broader transformation and innovation agenda. The programme is embedded in business realities. Participants are expected to engage directly with operational challenges, interrogate systems and design practical, work-based solutions that contribute to organisational performance.

For DSV, the message to delegates was clear: selection into the programme reflects both recognition and expectation. This is an investment in capability, and a call to ownership.

DaVinci’s Co-Creation Philosophy in Action

The strength of the partnership lies in alignment. DaVinci’s learning philosophy, centred on co-creation, systems thinking and responsible leadership, integrates seamlessly with DSV’s operational complexity and global footprint.

At DaVinci, learning is not treated as a content delivery system. It is participative, reflective and applied. Students are challenged to remain curious, seek truth beyond assumption, appreciate interconnected systems and embrace responsibility for shaping just and dynamic organisations.

This philosophy resonates strongly in a global logistics environment, where complexity, digitisation and rapid change demand leaders who think systemically rather than operate in silos.

The Higher Certificate at NQF Level 5 provides academic rigor and formal articulation pathways, but its real value lies in application. Each participant will develop an integrative learning project rooted in DSV’s live business challenges, presenting their insights and innovations to executive leadership.

The classroom becomes an extension of the workplace. The workplace becomes a laboratory for innovation.

Moving Beyond Technical Competence

One of the recurring themes during onboarding was that technical expertise alone is no longer sufficient. Engineers, IT professionals, operational managers and administrators are increasingly required to lead people, manage uncertainty and interpret layered systems.

The DSV-DaVinci partnership responds directly to this shift.

The programme is designed not only to build knowledge, but to transform mindset, cultivating disciplined learning habits, critical thinking and collaborative problem-solving. Participants are encouraged to speak up, engage deeply and take accountability for their development.

Importantly, the structure is intentionally supportive. A dedicated Learning Coordinator, academic guidance, digital learning platforms and leadership profiling tools ensure that participants are equipped to balance work, study and personal commitments. This integrated support model reflects the maturity of the partnership: both institutions recognise that sustained performance requires both challenge and care.

A Model of Industry-Academic Collaboration

The decision to host face-to-face sessions at DaVinci’s campus provides a protected space away from operational distractions. The environment aimed to encourage reflection, dialogue and cross-divisional connection, critical ingredients for innovation.

Over successive cohorts, the partnership has demonstrated consistent success. Previous groups have achieved strong academic results, with several graduating cum laude, reinforcing DSV’s confidence in its talent identification processes and DaVinci’s ability to translate academic rigor into workplace impact.

More significantly, the collaboration models what effective industry-academic engagement can look like:

• Business strategy informs curriculum application.
• Academic frameworks sharpen business thinking.
• Organisational oversight supports learner wellbeing.
• Work-based projects generate real value.

This reciprocal relationship ensures that the qualification remains relevant, rigorous and responsive to evolving industry demands.

Co-Creating the Future

As global logistics continues to digitise and transform, the need for leaders who can integrate technology, manage complexity and drive responsible innovation becomes more urgent. Through this partnership, DSV and DaVinci are not merely delivering a qualification; they are co-creating a leadership pipeline capable of sustaining competitive advantage.

The 2026 cohort now joins a growing community of DSV professionals shaped through this collaboration, individuals equipped not only with academic credentials but with sharpened strategic awareness and a deeper understanding of their role within interconnected systems.

The onboarding session, therefore, symbolised more than the beginning of a study journey. It reaffirmed a shared commitment between DSV and DaVinci: to invest deliberately in people, to align learning with strategy, and to co-create the future of leadership in a complex and rapidly evolving environment.

In response to growing demand for workplace-ready professionals in a transforming economy, The DaVinci Institute has expanded its accredited portfolio with five nationally recognised Occupational and Higher Occupational Certificates. These qualifications, registered on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) and listed with the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA), strengthen DaVinci’s commitment to delivering industry-relevant, practice-based learning that advances professional capability and organisational performance.

Occupational Certificate: Project Manager

SAQA ID: 101869

This qualification prepares professionals to plan, execute, monitor and close projects effectively within diverse organisational environments. The programme develops competence in project integration, scope, time, cost, quality, risk and stakeholder management. Graduates will be equipped to lead projects across sectors, ensuring delivery within defined constraints while aligning outcomes to strategic objectives.

Occupational Certificate: Small Business Consultant

SAQA ID: 118741

Designed for professionals supporting entrepreneurship and enterprise development, this qualification develops expertise in advising, mentoring and guiding small businesses toward sustainability and growth. The programme strengthens capacity in business diagnostics, financial management, compliance, strategy and operational improvement, contributing meaningfully to South Africa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Occupational Certificate: Retail Chain Store Manager

SAQA ID: 103150

This qualification develops managerial capability within the retail sector, focusing on operational excellence, financial performance, customer experience, merchandising and team leadership. Graduates will be prepared to manage retail chain stores effectively in competitive and technology-driven environments.

Higher Occupational Certificate: Human Resource Management Administrator

SAQA ID: 121150

This Higher Occupational Certificate equips learners with specialised knowledge and practical skills in HR administration, labour legislation, payroll processes, talent support and organisational compliance. The programme prepares HR professionals to function as competent administrators within complex organisational systems.

Occupational Certificate: Training and Development Practitioner

SAQA ID: 101321

This qualification develops professionals who design, facilitate and evaluate learning interventions within organisations. It emphasises workplace learning, skills development legislation, instructional design and assessment practice. Graduates will be positioned to contribute meaningfully to organisational capability development and national skills advancement.

Strengthening Professional Practice in a Transforming Economy

The inclusion of these qualifications reflects The DaVinci Institute’s strategic commitment to:

• Advancing occupational excellence
• Bridging theory and practice
• Supporting economic development and organisational sustainability
• Enhancing employability and professional credibility

These programmes are structured to combine theoretical insight, applied learning and workplace-based experience, ensuring graduates are workplace-ready and future-fit.

Prospective students, corporate partners and industry stakeholders are invited to engage with The DaVinci Institute to explore enrolment pathways, corporate partnerships and customised delivery options