Page 62 - SAPREF 50 year

Most people found the Fika Patso experience beneficial if not unbelievably wonderful. Photo courtesy Simone de Bruin
One Team, One Purpose
The 1990s were a time of great change in South Africa. Transformation was everywhere, no less so at SAPREF where a sea change occurred towards the end of the millennium.
There was a dramatic moment in SAPREF’s transformation: it came when, at a large meeting in the emergency headquarters building, the relatively new Managing Director, Richard Parkes, tore up an enlarged copy of the company logo, and announced that a new logo would be designed.
He said at the time, “The old logo was very much about our equipment, our hardware and plant out there. The new logo symbolises the company’s new people-orientated culture; it
is very much more about the people of SAPREF and the contribution they are going to make, and the impact that SAPREF makes on the community and the environment around us. In a nutshell, the new logo symbolises one team, one purpose — the new SAPREF.”
The main values of the people were listed at the time as honesty, loyalty, pride, responsibility, accountability, teamwork, transparency and trust.
However, bonding a diverse group into one team with one purpose was easier said than done, given the divisions of the past. Initially 82 people did a cross-cultural communications course. Then, an outward-bound organisation based at Fika Patso in the Drakensberg mountains was brought in. More than 450 SAPREF people participated in groups which
were mixed in terms of race, function, level and gender. Team spirit started growing ....
An article in the July 1994 issue of Columns magazine describes the fourth day of six as follows:
“They walk 4km to camp out in a cave. By now, this is a mere stroll, but they are carrying their bedding and supplies. The scenery gets better and better. Everyone gets involved in the cooking and hidden talents with the knife are revealed. There’s a lot of joking, needling and horse-play and some eat bully-beef curry for the first time in their lives. Now it is raining. They sing in all languages around the camp fire, only the San paintings on the cave walls bearing witness. Hot coffee never tasted so good. They try to sleep to the sound of rain falling and their mates snoring.”
In February 1995, Munaf Fyzoo, Production Foreman, Integrated Unit, said, “There are very few times I have worked so hard in my life. On the first day, SAPREF got back all
their money. The course was painfully nice, except the first day which was just painful. Days three to five were exhilarating stuff with unbelievable people. In all, an unbelievable experience in a remarkable setting. It’s been 10 days now since the course and I haven’t got cross yet ...”
Then came the appointment of a Transformation Manager in September 1999, and in 2000 the Investment in Excellence (IIE) course, which was designed to assist SAPREF people to understand the forces that face them in a changing environment, and to be able to master those forces. It aimed to improve one’s way of doing things, to release one’s potential.
The years 2000 and 2001 were marked
by many transformation initiatives including efficiency workshops and projects, a trade fair, sensing surveys, fishbowl sessions, communication courses, the establishment
of a transformation team and an imbizo task team, the publication of an ‘Aligning SAPREF’ booklet, section visioning, IIE Next Steps courses, IIE in Zulu, vision refinement and alignment, and IIE passports.
SAPREF: FUELLING SA FOR 50 YEARS
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