The Essential Talent Practices for Productive Collaboration

Understanding that effective collaboration is highly correlated with market performance, innovation, and creativity is one thing—knowing how to achieve it in the context of existing talent management practices requires intentional focus. Which practices in talent acquisition and onboarding help drive increased collaboration? How effective is training and development at improving collaboration? And can tweaks to rewards and performance goals make a difference?  

This brief is the third in a series based on research conducted in partnership by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) and Professor Rob Cross of Babson College. 

It builds upon some of the culture and leadership insights revealed in the first two, and delves into the touchpoints between effective collaboration and existing, core talent practices. The result is a set of ready-to-use best and next practices that organizations can leverage to optimize collaboration. As you will see, organizations can and should acquire talent for collaboration, start early with onboarding, develop ideal collaborative behaviors, and align performance goals and reward systems for collaboration.