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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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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.

This week, I'm pointing you to posts on posts on one of your jobs as a boss, giving performance feedback, Zappos, scenario planning for compensation, and great advice for bosses.

From the Effective CIO: Here or There?
"I believe that a leader is responsible for the success of his or her people.  There are two simple rules to make sure that happens: Help everyone succeed. Hopefully, here."

Wally's Comment: Chuck Musciano nails one key challenge for a boss who wants to help team members improve performance.

From Leadership Tangles: 5 Reasons it's So Hard to Give Tough Performance Feedback
"There are no two ways about it. It is tough to give good constructive feedback. Not providing clear tough feedback to peers, direct reports, and staff exacerbates performance problem and contributes to situations that tangle forward progress. For example, I’ve had clients whose direct reports continued to come up short in developing product roll-out strategies. Rather than confront that poor performance, senior leaders complained to each other, but not the person.  As a result, customers were disappointed and company revenue suffered."

Wally's Comment: Marcia Ruben gets right to the heart of the human nature reasons why talking to people about performance is tough.

If you want some ideas about how to do a good job of talking to people about behavior and performance, check out my blog post on the subject. It's also something I covered in the Working Supervisor's Support Kit.

From HR Web Cafe: Zappos: case study of a creative employer
"For some time now, we've been noticing that Zappos, a Las Vegas based e-commerce company with 1500 employees, keeps surfacing on blogs and in news reports for being both a remarkable example of customer service and an excellent place to work. We've been meaning to write about the company and are prompted to do so after seeing Chief Happiness Officer post about Zappos as a genuinely happy place to work. Others agree. The company earned spot #23 on Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work for 2009 list, the highest-ranking newcomer on the list."

Wally's Comment: Zappos has been in the news recently because it was acquired by Amazon. Julie Ferguson's post was written before that. Read it for an idea about something I hope Amazon doesn't mess with.

From Compensation Cafe: Scenario Planning: Reward Design in an Uncertain World
"Compensation planning - like life in general - got a lot tougher this past year or so.  And as we move into what has traditionally been the pay budgeting and planning months, many of us are wrestling with where (the heck) to take our reward plans amidst today's economic uncertainty. Perhaps we can borrow a technique from the business planner's toolkit."

Wally's Comment: Very often, the best ideas come from outside and industry or specialty. Ann Bares suggests that scenario planning, popular in the strategic planning community for forty years, might be a good tool for compensation planners. I covered scenario planning in a post about Planning for an Uncertain Future.

From Management Excellence: Things I Wish Someone Would Have Told Me When I First Became a Leader
"One of the motivations in writing Practical Lessons in Leadership a couple of years ago was to take a stab at leaving behind that letter we all wish we would have received when we first became leaders.  You know the letter…it’s the one that if we had read it and actually followed the advice, we might have short-circuited a few years of learning things the hard way. "

Wally's Comment: Consider this post a public service. Art Petty asked experienced managers what they wish they would have known sooner. A great read and action sparker.

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.