CELEBRATED lecturer Professor Tshedi Naong has been conferred with a full professorship title, Lecturer and Business Administration Professor in the Department of Business at the Central University of Technology (CUT).
Delivering his acceptance speech, Naong highlighted the importance of cultural diversity which he said played a key role in institutions.
“This is really a mammoth task. It is not an easy job to do. If we agree that a strategy is something that takes a long time, we can then say it is quite a huge exercise. A strategy that is at odds with a company’s culture is doomed. Culture trumps strategy every time and eats strategy for breakfast. When we say culture eats strategy, we are talking about your very excellent policies, strategies that happen not to see the light of day. Entitlement underlies most of the difficulties of the execution of excellent strategies,” he said.
Naong will lead the faculty in the institution seen by many as the foremost higher education institution in Mzansi and is dedicated to training in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
He said effective alignment of culture and strategy provided a means of getting people to work together to reach a common strategic goal and achieve an organisation’s vision.
“Culture is a glue that combines and influences managerial views which in turn, affects recruitment, resources allocation, management, and organisational design.”
He said that what institutions were supposed to strive for was to ensure that values, behaviours, and practices were not only on paper but rather were understood, lived and experienced. If these two notions speak to one another, you are guaranteed of the results, profit, and productivity. So, we say culture is a driving path! I truly believe that culture brings uniformity and if you have people that speak from the same voice, same understanding and practices, you are guaranteed to achieve the desired goals you have set for yourself.”
