Agile Talent: How to Source and Manage Outside Experts

How to Leverage Talent You Don’t Own

Campbell Soup Company and PepsiCo seek advice from anthropologists to understand customer tastes and preferences. Google and Intel engage experts in social science and biomechanics to assess how people think about and use technology.

Companies are gaining advantage through a new capability—strategic use of external experts—made possible by technology and the globalization of talent. Leaders everywhere recognize that “lean,” “agile,” and “fast” strategies require new ways to access and leverage—without owning—key talent to fill critical gaps. As managers seek nontraditional sources of strategic talent and experiment with fast, flexible ways of engaging these experts, they need a new roadmap.

This book delivers that roadmap. It tells you how to assess, choose, attract, develop, support, and retain your external talent. Authored by thought leaders and bestselling authors in leadership and talent management who teach and consult globally, Agile Talent reveals how companies such as Apple, Uber, Airbnb, Google, IBM, and Bain Capital organize and manage new forms of talent in innovative ways. Supported by survey data and packed with tools and templates for applying these ideas, this book is the ultimate guide for winning the next war for talent.

Jon Younger is partner emeritus of the RBL Group, where he led the firm’s Strategic HR practice. He is a member of the executive education faculties of the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan; Indian School of Business; and the Copenhagen School of Business. He chairs the annual ISB-NHRD conference on talent management in India and is a member of the Government of Singapore advisory board in HR Transformation. He teaches and consults widely in North America, Europe, and Asia. He is a coauthor of many articles and four books: HR from the Outside In, HR Transformation, HR Competencies, and Global HR Competencies.

Norm Smallwood is President and cofounder of RBL Group, and leads the firm’s Leadership practice. He has taught in the executive education faculties of the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and the Marriott School of Business, Brigham Young University. He has been cited by the journal Leadership Excellence as a leading voice in the field of leadership. He teaches and consults widely in North America, the Middle East, and Asia. He is the coauthor of many articles and several important leadership books including Results Based Leadership, Leadership Brand, Leadership Code, and Leadership Sustainability.