ABSTRACT
Organisational culture emerges through what the workplace means for them, expressed through the stories staff tell and the songs they sing. To achieve transformative change, wise leaders need to understand the narratives and develop new ones; to listen to the music and change the song. Professional development at all levels needs to embrace creativity and empathy to unlock the human dimension in an enterprise. According to the Global Leadership Survey, HR currently is focusing heavily on two skills that they are not rating as critical leadership skills for the future: Building consensus and commitment and Communicating and interacting with others. The life and times of contemporary organisations are replete with instances where they were let down by their culture. Whether that was the immediate workplace environment or that of the various stakeholders, the 'culture' was often cited as a reason for failure. The art of negotiation depends not just on a negotiating position but on human factors of the negotiators.
