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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 learning about business and leadership from unusual places, reward strategies, employee engagement, and apprenticeships

From Management Excellence: Leadership Lessons Learned in a Crane and While Sitting on A 5 Gallon Pail
"As a college student way back in the 80’s, I had the good fortune to have a regular job during summer, winter and spring breaks.  The fact that it might have been at times one of the world’s nastiest jobs adds some flavor to the story."

Wally's Comment: Art Petty gives us a peek at his early life and learning about leadership. I know from personal experience that you can learn a lot when you work in a place that moves giant pieces of machinery around.

From HR Bartender: What I’ve Learned about Business from Mike Rowe
"For those who aren’t familiar, host Mike Rowe, a former professional opera singer, scours the country in search of the men and women who work some of the most thankless, undesirable, and horribly dirty jobs imaginable.  Then, he works as their apprentice, doing each aspect of the job and getting every bit as dirty as they do.  The show’s premise: highlight the work of these hard working individuals who make life bearable for the rest of us. Aside from the sheer entertainment value of watching Mike deal with poop, slop, slime and dirt, there are several business lessons to be learned from watching Dirty Jobs:"

Wally's Comment: Sharlyn Lauby picked up some lessons from Mike Rowe's TV show. That's sure easier than running a crane but the lessons are solid, no matter the source.

From Compensation Force: Top Three Reward Strategies for 2008
"Each fall for a number of years, I have conducted an annual compensation planning survey among organizations in my market.  My favorite part of the survey is the final open-ended question where I ask each participant "what reward strategies and tactics did your organization find most successful in attracting, retaining and motivating employees in 2009? (or whatever the most recent year has been)" The responses are always revealing and it is particularly interesting to see how they trend over time, through good economic years and bad ones."

Wally's Comment: This is a well-written post by a very savvy and experienced compensation expert.

From David Zinger: The 14 Keys of Employee Engagement

Wally's Comment: Most of the people who write/speak/consult about engagement seem intent on branding their personal definition of the term and marketing only their instruments and techniques. The great thing about Dave Zinger is that he's just concerned with helping you create a better and more productive workplace. And, for the record, Dave was writing about this stuff when some of the other "experts" thought that engagement required "a ring and a wedding date."

From the Effective CIO: In Defense of Apprentices
"My recent post on knowledge capture generated all sorts of outstanding comments and feedback. Repeatedly, one thing stood out: the idea that apprenticeships, often seen as an “old school” training tool, may be one of the most important ways to transfer real knowledge in an organization."

Wally's Comment: Chuck Musciano put this post togetherbased on the comments on a previous blog post. He comes at it from the perspective of knowledge capture.

This is a big subject. There are apprenticeship programs, which are mostly confined to skilled trades and perceived as "blue collar." But physicist Freeman Dyson conceived of "Science as a Craft Industry" and the Software Craftsmanship movement is based, in part, on applying the apprenticeship model to writing code.

In addition to programs there is that broader apprenticeship model, which refers to learning a trade or craft mostly on the job. You observe the masters in action and learn to do what they do. Feedback is a key component. As I've written for years, leadership is an apprenticeship trade based on that model.

Want more on leadership? Then check out the latest Leadership Development Carnival where you'll find pointers to lots of great posts by lots of commentators.

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.