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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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Here's my pick of the five best posts from this week's business blogs. I'm pointing you to posts on performance incentives, employees are a necessary evil, Munchausen Syndrome in management, retaining talent, and learning.

In addition to blogging here about leadership issues, I'm now blogging at Momentor on career issues. There will be a post similar to this one but on career issues over there every week.

From Ann Bares at Compensation Force: Can Your Employees Make a Difference? What Does Your Incentive Plan Say?
"I am floored by how many times, during the design of an employee incentive plan, management trots out the assumption (as though it were an indisputable truth) that individual employees are unable to make a meaningful contribution to overall organization - or business unit - performance measures. That there can be no possible line of sight between the work of rank and file employees and overall organizational metrics like revenues or net income. And so, it logically follows, the only way to implement incentives for most of an organization's population is to focus on individual performance measures, perhaps with a token (and low-weighted) nod to something at the organizational level. When I push back on this tendency, I often get a response along the lines of: "Well, these people can't make a difference in the organization's bottom line." Really? Then why are they there?"

Wally's Comment: This simply the best post ever on performance incentives and whether individuals can make a difference.

From the Happy Employee: Employees Are a Necessary Evil
"Employees are human, but at the end of the day they're just a resource.

Wally's Comment: How important are people, anyway? Read this one right after you read Ann Bares post above.

From HR Observations: Creating Problems In Order To Solve Them
"Part of the problem may be of our own creation. We usually get the type of behavior we reward. So if we consistently reward problem solving behavior we may have created an "attention junky" (my term) who now has to create problems to solve in order to get the attention for solving the problem. "

Wally's Comment: Oh, boy, this is something I've seen before.

From Results vs. Activities: “Love Em and Lose em”….Anyway
"The topic of engaging and retaining talent seems to be even hotter. By now you have purchased and read the best selling book by my colleague and friend Beverly Kaye (Love em or lose em) and know all the strategies for keeping your best talent. However, a recent study by ClearRock, an executive coaching firm located in Boston found that holding onto high performing talent is challenging–whether you love em or not."

Wally's Comment: It doesn't matter whether the people on your team are all-stars or also-rans, coaching is still a challenge.

From Bob Sutton: Do You Believe That Your People Can Learn?
"I have written here about Carol Dweck's fascinating research on the differences between people who believe that their IQ's are fixed versus those who believe their IQ's are malleable. As she shows in Mindset (which summarizes a large body of careful research), people who believe that "being smart" results from learning and experience are much more likely to try new things, to ask "dumb" questions, and to risk failing. In contrast, people who believe that IQ is fixed believe that having to work hard to learn things is a bad sign because it shows they aren't that smart, so they avoid situations where they have to learn new things and that involve struggle or failure. For people who believe that IQ is fixed, the focus is on convincing other people that they know a lot already, that they learn very fast, and that they rarely fail or make mistakes. A new academic paper by Professors Peter Heslin and Don VandeWalle applies the logic of Dweck's research to managers and the assumptions that they hold about their people.

Wally's Comment: What do you believe about your team members' capacity to learn? What difference does it make?

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.