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Here are five choice articles from the business schools and the business press to start off your work week. I'm pointing you to articles about new ways to train, product "re-invention," performance management, and the upside of failure. We'll start with two training-related articles.

From the Toronto Globe and Mail: Training costs: Less is more
"After previous recessions, companies boosted spending on training to help downsized work forces. This time, it's a different story."

Wally's Comment: For the last year or so we've been saying, "Some things will never be the same after this recession." Turns out that training is one of them.

From the Wall Street Journal: The Campus Consultant
"The school takes on clients only if the faculty members are interested in the project or if it is relevant to their research and if they are willing to work with the company on follow-up. Simple training programs are rejected in favor of programs that faculty members co-create with the client's senior executives."

Wally's Comment: This isn't training, but it is about the point where training and consulting overlap. The idea is that companies who use universities to get some of the same benefits they once got from consultants get those benefits for less and may get a higher quality product besides.

From Industry Week: The Case for Product Reinvention
"Product development at most companies is an evolutionary process, but some manufacturers have found the leap to an entirely new product line a profitable move."

Wally's Comment: You've spent time and money and energy developing a product and expertise. Now, what else can you do with them?

From DDI: Performance Management Gone Wrong
"Performance management is one of the most misused management processes. The shame is that if used effectively, it can be one of the most powerful."

Wally's Comment: This post, by Rich Wellins, includes a great set of questions to evaluate your company's performance management.

From the McCombs School: The Upside of Failure: Turning Uh-oh into A-ha!
"WE ALL FAIL. Some of us linger over our failures, examining the wreckage of what might have been, while others sail on toward new ventures (and new failures) without being anchored to old regrets. Why do some people emerge from failure stronger? How do they recover from setbacks to reach new heights of success? What is the secret of the phoenix that emerges from the flames?"

Wally's Comment: Unless you are cut from different psycho-biological cloth than the rest of us, you are going to do things that won't work out the way you thought they would. At that point you have two options. You can take the "failure" as proof that you're doomed. Or you can learn from the experience. Guess which option is best.

My own preference is to see everything that I try as an experiment that I should learn from no matter how it turns out.

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.