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Every week I take a look around at the business blogs and identify five posts that I think are both interesting and worth reading. This week I'm pointing you to posts about HR and respect, robotic management, a plea for reasoned humility, coaching changes in the NCAA, and some multi-cultural aspects of engagement. There are also links to Carnivals and kudos to Kris Dunn at The HR Capitalist.

Let's start with the Carnivals. One Man Band hosts the latest edition of Carnival of the Capitalists.

HR Capitalist Now a Featured Blog at Workforce Management
Big time Kudos to Kris Dunn. It's good to see that others have discovered what some of us have known for a while. The HR Capitalist is consistently interesting and helpful. Way to go, Kris!

From the Evil HR Lady: Is HR Not Respected?
Evil HR Lady is another consistently interesting blog. The Evil One recently responded to a question about whether HR got enough respect. Her response was spot-on as usual.

From Michael Wade at Execupundit: Plea of Robotic Management
"Dear Lord of Robotic Management, Let us avoid making the sort of decisions that might expose us to the sneering questions of lawyers and journalists. Guide us instead to the creation of automatic punishments, regardless of logic or reality, so we can say that it is policy and not ourselves who decided the fate of the ensnared."

From Jim Stroup at Managing Leadership: Rays of hope
"We understand that there are people who overestimate their competence. But in assuming we can figure out ways to deal with that, we may be overestimating ours. In a comment to yesterday’s post, Steve Roesler, who authors All Things Workplace, provides a powerful example of this, which definitely lends support to the idea that we might want to pause on this subject for a bit, yet."

From Business Week: The Revolving Door, NCAA Style
"Compared with CEOs, it’s refreshing to see both how closely coaches’ performance is tied to job security—and how straight the schools can be with the reasons for the coaches’ departures. (“He represented the university in a first-class manner and always did,” Duke University athletic director Joe Alleva told the Winston-Salem Journal about now former Duke football coach Ted Roof. “It just comes down to a point where you need to win some games.”) "

From Systematic HR: Pride and Shame in Employee Engagement
"We generally hear about employee engagement being defined as that intangible quality which exists within an employee that stimulates him or her to work that additional discretionary hour beyond what is required for the basic performance of his or her job. In the Western world, we usually think this comes from having “cool work” or having engrained adopted the company’s philosophies and strategies for the future. What this translates to is that there is a pride of work and company that employees are stimulated by to achieve more. Often, we target our engagement communications to heighten these specific factors. However, this idea of engagement is not always true across the world. As the world spreads into Asia and specifically China, there may be a case to be made that the exact opposite may be factors for engagement."

Wally's Comment: There are many real cultural issues (as opposed to corporate culture issues) that will affect us all and how we manage in a global business world. This post does a great job of laying out some of the ones that relate to that Holy Grail of management, "engagement."

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.

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Wally Bock has helped people learn to be great bosses for more than a quarter century. His latest book, Performance Talk: The One-on-One Part of Leadership, makes learning key leadership principles almost effortless by teaching through a story and providing lists of resources for further growth.

Click here to find out more about Wally's coaching services.

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check our Wally Bock's Three Star Leadership Letter.

Click here to find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.