Agile Talent : How to Source and Manage Outside Experts

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

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.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Younger (coauthor, HR from the Outside In) and Smallwood (coauthor, Leadership Sustainability) are partner emeritus and cofounder, respectively, of the RBL Group, a human resources consulting organization. Here they lay out the demands placed on contemporary organizations with a workforce that can be mobile, project driven, and independent. Thus, in organizations where the most important assets can latterly walk away, there are few ways to get it right and many to get it wrong. The book may be considered the descendant of -Peter F. Drucker's Management and Thomas J. -Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr.'s In Search of Excellence. With a textbook-like feel, it contains strong suite tables that capture the essence of the text. While there is a bias toward tech, almost every organization faces the reality that some tasks are best left to those with special expertise. In a number of cases this may be the more familiar consultant role, in others it could be outsourcing, or project driven. VERDICT The challenge addressed in this work is how organizations can best manage their experts-like all DIY books, read before need.-Steven Silkunas, Fernandina Beach, FL © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.