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Independent business blogs are blogs that aren't supported by an organization like a magazine, newspaper, company, or business school. Those people provide lots of great content, but they don't need any additional exposure. In this post, every week, I bring you posts of quality from excellent bloggers that don't get as much publicity.

You can find more quality posts in the top blog carnivals. Be sure to check out the Leadership Development Carnival and the Carnival of Human Resources.

This week, I'm pointing you to posts on your toothless values, leading the slow charge, homage to A. G. Lafley, leading by example, and some thoughtful advice about building on your strengths.

From Management Excellence: Your Firm’s Values Have No Teeth
"The results of my informal polling as well as my formal surveying (as part of culture assessments) indicates that for many organizations, values exist as nice statements in a frame with little meaning or use in day-to-day business dealings.  Based on my own travels, firms where values are both clear and they are connected in people’s minds to acceptable and unacceptable forms of behavior are the minority."

Wally's Comment: Art Petty slams another nail on the head with this post. For years many consultants have made a fine living by helping firms write fine-sounding statements of mission and values that never went anywhere except into a frame. Chris Argyris distinguished between the "Theory Espoused" and the "Theory in Use." Replace the word "theory" with the word "values" and you have the core of Art's excellent post.

For an idea of how to do it right, check out Joseph Michelli's excellent book about Ritz Carlton: The New Gold Standard.

And, for extra credit, you can suggest lyrics for a country song titled "Your Toothless Values."

From Rosa Say: Lead the Slow Charge
"If you are a business owner, this recession may be doing you a favor. You may realize it in your head (albeit somewhat begrudgingly), but are you seeing it yet in the faces of your customers as you continue to collect those revenue scraps you are wishing will merge back into cash flow?"

Wally's Comment: Rosa Say has a special way of gently calling your attention to important things. This post is a good example. You'll be urged to find opportunity in the changing world and you'll learn why closing a bunch of locations may not help Starbucks much.

From Caddell Insight Group: An innovation hero exits
"I was surprised to read about P&G replacing AG Lafley as CEO with current COO Robert McDonald. The WSJ article was not explicit as to the reasons, but it appeared that the timing had been accelerated from a planned transition to occur later, perhaps due to lower-than-expected results P&G was expected to announce."

Wally's Comment: John Caddell offers a thoughtful post about A. G. Lafley, whom John considers the premier innovation CEO of the present era.

From You Aren't the Boss of Me: Leading by Example & Mistaken Beliefs
"On the face of it, to get it right, leaders must exhibit the behaviour they would like to see in others.  To use a well worn expression (that frankly, really belongs in the cliché bin), it’s about “walking the walk and talking the talk”.   What could possibly be complicated about that? Yet, some of us still manage to muck it up. Perhaps  it is so simple that we often fail to consider it at all.  Or, perhaps it is that some people have mistaken beliefs about what leading by example is really about. Here are a few possibilities that come to mind for me."

Wally's Comment: There is no way that a summary will do this post justice. It is, truly, rich in wisdom.

From Results vs. Activities: HRD Shams #3: Leveraging Your Strengths
"We now have measures of your 'signature strengths' (Seligman) and ways to 'discover' your strengths (Buckingham & Clifton).  It does seem to be true that deploying our 'signature strengths' does seem to have a significant clinical impact on raising our psychological well-being. But, is also seems to be true that strengths overdone can become our weaknesses."

Wally's Comment: Ken Nowack is one of those deep thinkers that does the intellectual heavy lifting and then helps you understand your world better. This post is about why the idea of "building on strength" isn't always the perfect answer.

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.