Improving collaboration often a hight priority
In many other organisations, an important question is: how can we improve collaboration? Collaboration at all levels in the organisation. Globally, regionally, in countries, between countries, in teams and in projects.
What can HR do to improve collaboration?
There is an enormous opportunity for HR to increase impact by designing interventions that can help to improve collaboration.
10 suggestions:
- Make the ability to collaborate an important element in the selection of new people.
- Hire people who already have a good (international) network, and who have a proven track record of collaboration.
- Do not hire individuals, but hire teams of people who have already worked together for years (the longer a team works together, the more effective a team becomes).
- Invest in collaboration tools (such as Slack, Yammer, Teams), and as HR give the good example by using the tool in projects and programs.
- Make collaboration an integral part of all training/ development activities. All of our global leadership programs now start with a virtual teaming phase, where the participants collaborate in a virtual team working on a strategic assignment, before they physically meet.
- Map the relevant networks in your organisation, detect the natural collaborators and ask them to move to strategic nodes in the network where there impact can even be bigger.
- Reward collaboration, by rewarding teams and individuals who enhance collaboration.
- Invest in Community Facilitators, who stimulate communities and facilitate learning in communities.
- Change the job title from CHRO to CCO (Chief Collaboration Officer), to mark the importance of collaboration
- Involve young generations in all your projects, as their natural way of working is collaborative and inclusive, and older generations can benefit from their approach.
