Dr Bheki Mdakane, could you please give us a brief overview of your career to date?
My career is quite interesting in the sense that I started as a clerk in the mines and I ended up in an executive position. I began in 1987 as a junior administrative clerk. I was later promoted to senior clerk, then I found myself taking on responsibilities that led me to become a supervisor, a superintendent and eventually a manager. I even served on some executive committees within the mining sector and I am also a teacher. That means I have had two careers running side by side.
There was also a legal aspect to my development because I completed my master’s with DaVinci in the domain of labour law in 2016. After COVID, my career took a dip but I now find myself in a new chapter.
In a few words, how would you describe your journey to completing your doctorate?
A mixed bag. The journey to completing the doctorate was truly a mixed experience. I started in 2018 and thought I would be done by 2021. Then COVID struck. I lost my data, including terabytes stored on Microsoft 360 cloud, because of load shedding.
The last document I retrieved after the data loss was not as updated as I believed it was. I took a sabbatical. I wanted to give up, but something inside me insisted I could not.
My first submission in 2023 felt correct because I picked up the work from where I thought I had left off, but behind the scenes many things were not up to standard. I only discovered this after I submitted. I was angry, of course, but I had to let it go and tell myself to take it on the chin and relax. I realised that trying to finish within my preferred timeline was only going to compromise the quality of the work.
When you consider that I submitted in 2023 and only graduated in 2025, you can see how much time it took. But I am glad it happened that way because I needed to step back, review everything and identify new angles, since things had changed. That kept me going because I reminded myself that I was not chasing a qualification, I was chasing education. I wanted to grow from the process rather than simply end up with a qualification that means nothing.
Can you share a moment or experience during your doctoral studies that changed your thinking, your approach to research or the way you resolve problems in your organisation?
Losing my data, as I mentioned, could easily have broken me. That experience shifted my entire paradigm. I told myself to relax because things would not end well if I insisted on doing everything according to my own timeline. You are not in control of the universe.
My thinking shifted and I became more grounded. Do not rush. Take things as they come. You may have a goal, but the universe might not allow you to reach it when you want to because you still need to be tested.
Another thing that changed me was the examination process, the back and forth between examiner one and examiner two. There is no way we can all think the same. It was painful to receive a “not proceed” because one examiner did not see the work the same way the other did or perhaps did not read it with the level of familiarity required.
Nevertheless, I had to take it on the chin and remind myself that this is academic rigour. I had to trust the process until we found a point of convergence. Eventually, we did and here I am today, having reached that point of alignment with all the examiners.
Let us talk about the Da Vinci Institute’s TIPS framework. Do you find it helpful?
Yes. The TIPS framework is very interesting because my study focused mainly on the P, the people aspect. My research explored the mining host community’s perspectives and experiences, and the P relates directly to stakeholder engagement in my thesis.
The framework I developed for my study was built from the TIPS model, so integrating it was both relevant and exciting.
What advice would you give to incoming doctoral students who will be studying with us?
Unfortunately, no two journeys are ever the same. We may travel together to the garage, but we are not necessarily travelling the same road. It may look like the same road, but you might have more steps to take than I do. Someone else might have fewer steps even though we left the same place at the same time. There is no one size fits all.
We are all different and we all have different archetypes. My advice is that every prospective PhD student needs to understand themselves. You need to know what makes you tick, what you are made of and the character you bring into the process.
As you progress, there will be examination processes and feedback that may not align with what you expected. If you do not know yourself, that kind of feedback could make you give up. That is why I say, there is never the same journey for anyone.
The key is self understanding. The research you undertake is your study. A professor, whether an examiner or supervisor, is a guide. At the end of the day, it is your work. It is not about the professor because you are the one who conceptualised everything in your own mind. Therefore, you need to stand your ground.
Leave a Reply