GIBS took the opportunity in 2025 to reconnect with its values. This culminated in a half-day, in-person gathering on campus that consisted of a panel and group dialogues, during which staff and faculty were encouraged to talk frankly and openly about the GIBS culture, the school’s values, and how best to keep the GIBS magic alive.
As GIBS Dean Prof. Morris Mthombeni told the room, “This is a chance to connect and to re-negotiate who we are, and who we want to be. It’s an opportunity for us to really stretch ourselves and make sure that when we talk about GIBS magic, it’s something that we all agree is important, and we know what it means and how it drives us.”
Setting the scene, Lerato Mahlasela, the executive director for human capital and development at GIBS, explained that “a few years ago, our executive committee asked the management committee to do some work to review our values to see if they needed refreshing or clarification”. They set about doing just that, and the end result was a clearer, more refined, and refreshed set of core GIBS values that were fit for purpose today and relevant for the future.
The new-look GIBS values are:
- Go the extra mile: We are willing to always do what is necessary to exceed expectations and display our commitment to excellence.
- Keep an open mind: We value and encourage diverse perspectives. We are curious and experiment to find novel ways to solve problems and embrace change.
- Lend a helping hand: We believe in teamwork and collaboration. We support each other with empathy and compassion.
- Do the right thing: We are committed to integrity, honesty, and fairness. We show respect for others and make decisions that are in the best interest of the greater good.
While this all looked great on paper, the true impact of strong values lies in their ability to unite, inspire, and direct day-to-day actions and ways of being. As Mahlasela noted, “They help guide behaviours and decision-making, they help us shape our organisation’s identity so we can make the right decisions in challenging moments.”
In practical terms, this would require fostering behaviours that embedded a quality mindset across the entire business school.
Quality in the spotlight
Drawing on a 2025 paper by Jason Martin, Mattias Elg and Ida Gremyr, Mahlasela stressed that quality must always be considered in context. At GIBS, this meant delivering more than student and corporate customer value; it necessitated an organisation-wide commitment to delivering quality, not just based on agreed standards but by taking into account the broader impact on communities, stakeholders, and the impact on the African continent as a whole.
The conceptual meanings of quality
Bringing Martin, Elg and Gremyr’s four-quadrant “quality-in-use” model to life for GIBS was a specific focus of the panel discussion and dialogues, which provided a valuable opportunity to explore what quality looks like at GIBS, how it was experienced, and the impact it should be having. By harvesting ideas and insights from across GIBS, the intention was to breathe life into the four values, ensuring that they did not just live inside a dusty document on the Dean’s desk, but were a vibrant extension of the school’s day-to-day operations.
Breathing life into our values
To maintain the momentum and the long-term focus on the four values, it was decided to revisit – in depth – one of the four GIBS values each year. This way, the conversation would continue, remaining fresh and relevant in the minds of staff and faculty.
For 2025, the “Go the extra mile” value was singled out.
This meant that over the year, Gibsonites would actively celebrate staff and faculty who showed “gold-star quality and who are showing up and going the extra mile”, explained Mahlasela. This would be supported within teams by creating mutually supportive spaces where teams could innovate and explore new ideas – sometimes getting it right and sometimes getting it wrong, but always in a safe space.
Through a formalised competition and judging process – which included financial prizes for winning teams – Gibsonites would be encouraged to showcase their initiatives and ideas. Finally, GIBS undertook to share learnings and reflections from their value-driven journey with stakeholders.
To get to this point, though, required a common understanding, fresh perspectives, ideas, and input. This is where the panel discussion and dialogue portions of the workshop came into their own.
Quality panel discussion: What does excellence look like?
During an illuminating panel discussion, moderated by Prof. Mthombeni, Gibsonites were exposed to real-world examples of quality service and delivery in action, to help set the scene for inward deliberation.
The intention behind the session was to inspire participants to rethink how quality was perceived through the eyes of GIBS’s clients and stakeholders. By inviting external voices into the conversation, the panel challenged assumptions, shared practical insights, and broadened perspectives on what quality at GIBS should look like in practice.
Businessman and restauranteur Gary Kyriacou, co-founder of the Marble Hospitality Group, and Mokgadi Manamela, managing executive for safety, health, environment and quality at the Gautrain Management Agency, shared a wealth of insights and experiences. Just two key take-home moments from this session were:
“A big-picture mindset is essential. We’re not only moving passengers, we’re shaping how future generations trust and experience public transport in South Africa.”
Mokgadi Manamela – reflecting on the mindset required to deliver quality
“We need values, not rules. If your people live the values at the back end, it will flow through to every guest experience. We have to perform every day, every night — that’s what we try to do.”
Gary Kyriacou – reflecting on how values drive customer experiences in the restaurant industry
Let’s talk: Group dialogues
Moderating this portion of the workshop was Vuyokazi Majola, senior manager for learning and development at GIBS. The intention was to create something new out of a process of listening, letting go of closely held views, respecting the opinions of others, and sharing ideas in a way that invited discussion and participation.
The group dialogues, which were jointly facilitated by other members of the Learning and Development team, as well as the NextGen board, sought to explore:
- Fresh perspectives on how quality is defined and delivered in different industries.
- The risks and impact of overlooking quality, especially on trust and reputation.
- Assumptions that may be limiting transformational client and student experiences.
- Steps toward building a shared, practical definition of quality at GIBS, and ensuring it is lived consistently.
With GIBS’s values and the quality of the business school’s offering at the centre of the dialogue, topics raised during this portion of the reconnection process were varied and, at times, critical.
Among the key themes to emerge included a call for all Gibsonites to take accountability and ownership. This meant paying attention and caring not only about an individual business unit or service, but to the entire GIBS ecosystem. It centred on a willingness to step in and actively make a difference when required. As one participant observed, this required pitching up each and every day and delivering a quality service, so standards remained consistently high.
Another strong point was a plea to listen to feedback without taking observations personally. Take criticism on board, was one comment. Use it as an opportunity to improve, was another.
Super summary: Embedding quality at GIBS
In their final reflections, which rounded off the Reconnecting to our Values workshop, Gibsonites shared their views on how each and every member of GIBS could contribute to an inspired culture of learning, where staff were engaged, students were thriving, and corporate clients got value for money.
Suggestions ranged from calls for a customer-centricity workshop to embracing the lessons that come from failure, as well as supporting one another.
Designing a roadmap: Pathway to embedding quality
The insights that emerged from the sessions were more than just feedback. They were incorporated into the foundation of a practical roadmap for embedding quality at GIBS.
The roadmap that emerged was:
- Define quality at GIBS
Create a shared definition of what quality means for the school. - Set quality standards
Develop practical, measurable standards that guide behaviours and decisions. - Integrate into practice
Embed the standards into onboarding, performance discussions, recognition coaching, and daily work. - Keep the conversation alive
Use further dialogues and management forums to sustain learning. - Measure and improve
Track progress through surveys and feedback, celebrate success, and refine as needed.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- After 25 years of impact, GIBS decided to revisit and reconnect with the values that turned an upstart South African business school into a triple-accredited, top-ranked global institution and the best executive education offering in South Africa.
- Four core values underpin the GIBS culture.
- These values are critical to delivering quality “GIBS magic” day in and day out.
- The question is: how can GIBS embed these values across its practices, systems, and tools?
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