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The 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.

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I'm heading home from Austin, where I stayed at the excellent Stephen F. Austin hotel for the first time. It's one of those great older hotels with small rooms and great service. I'll stay there again.

Here are five excellent business blog posts for your reading pleasure. I'm pointing you to posts on insights from psychology, making team meetings more effective, priorities, over-praising, and executive severance packages.

From PsyBlog: What Everyone Should Know About Their Own Minds: 6 Introspective Insights from Psychology
"Ever wondered where your opinions come from, how you manage to be creative, or how you solve problems? Well, don't bother. Psychology studies examining these areas and more have found that while we're good at inventing plausible explanations, these explanations are frequently completely made-up. In this series of posts, I examine some of the classic findings in psychology that show we have precious little insight into our own thought processes."

From Business Toolkit: 5 Tips for Effective Virtual Team Meetings
"Is one of your new year's resolutions to ensure that your virtual team meetings are more effective? Today’s post includes 5 tips for Effective Virtual Team Meetings. Perhaps you work with in-person teams - not to worry, many of these ideas will apply to you as well."

From Michael Wade at Execupundit: The Neglected
"Just as we've learned the difference between working harder and working smarter, we are often reminded of the need to emphasize and re-emphasize the importance of the so-called soft skills. Technical problems are quickly and relatively easily resolved. The problems sparked by soft skill deficiencies churn the stomach acid of many a manager and keep HR directors up at night."

From Ann Bares at Compensation Force: On the Fear of "Overpraising" Employees
"Thank you to Liz Ryan, author of the Career Insight column for BusinessWeek online, for hitting an important nail right on the head with Is Praising Employees Counterproductive? I run into the puzzling phenomenon she describes, fear of overpraising employees, on a far-too-regular basis. Managers and supervisors consciously hold back praise and verbal recognition, or dole it out in a careful and sparing fashion, for fear - I guess - that it will undermine employee work ethic, or worse. In her article, Ryan addresses some of the most common fears (yes, fears) associated with praising employees, and explains why they are unfounded"

From KnowHR: Whoever Designed Ray Mozilo’s Severance Package Should Be Ashamed
In an ugly scene from Severance Packages Gone Wild, we see Countrywide Financial’s CEO getting $110 million as he leaves the company. The rub? Under Ray Mozilo’s “leadership” in the past year, Countrywide’s stock declined 81 percent and they laid off 10,000 employees. Yep, he ran the company into the ground by encouraging subprime lending, then he gets paid off."

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.