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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 experimentation, middle managers, leadership development, leadership mantras, and motivation and rewards.

From Management Excellence: 7 Ideas to Stimulate Experimentation in Your Organization
"Dan Ariely offers an interesting piece in the April, 2010 Harvard Business Review on “Why Businesses Don’t Experiment.” In this brief essay (only available for a fee as of this writing), he offers two main reasons for the lack of experimentation."

Wally's Comment: An experiment is an activity where you have an idea what will happen if you do something, so you do it to see if you're right. It's like Edison and however many filament materials he tried for the incandescent light bulb. The key point is that experiments don't succeed or fail. You learn from every one.

From All Things Workplace: Talent Issue? Middle Managers
"Here's a lead from a Management-Issues article that caught my attention: "The focus of many American businesses on nurturing and grooming their top-level talent is masking a growing crisis further down the management scale – with more than half admitting they are suffering from a "critical" shortage of middle managers." Quite a bit of our client work relates to developing talent, so it really jumped off the page. I'm not surprised at the implied shock value because headlines are supposed to grab attention. And, the survey quoted was conducted by a talent management firm whose purpose is to drill down and find out what is happening in their specialty area."

Wally's Comment: There are two primary reasons we are facing a critical shortage of middle managers. One is that a number of gurus decided that middle managers would simply not be needed in the Digital Age and a number of companies believed them. The second reason is that since they already believed that middle managers would cease to exist, they saw no point in devoting precious training dollars to them.

I just reviewed Lisa Haneberg's book, The High Impact Middle Manager. It's a good place to start if you want to make things right.

From Reflection Leadership: Leadership Development: Just in Case or Just in Time
"The other day I ran across this article from John Cook where he wrote about the difference between “Just in Case” learning and “Just in Time” learning and I’ve been thinking about how Just in Case and Just in Time relate to leadership development."

Wally's Comment: Just in Time learning is essential if you believe that leadership is an apprentice trade and you need to make the best of learning on the job.

From Terry Starbucker: Mantras R Us: The Pocket Guide to Effective Zen Leadership
"I’m a great believer in injecting a little Zen into our day-to-day leadership style, because I’ve found it to be very, very effective.  More specifically, I’m a proponent of using mantras. Mantras are defined as a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that are considered capable of “creating transformation” (Wikipedia).  They can be very useful guideposts to action, because as they are repeated, over and over again, the underlying concepts can take root, setting the stage for real change."

Wally's Comment: You don't have to think of these as "mantras." You don't even have to care about Zen. Just don't make the mistake of thinking that these little sayings are "cute" or "clever." They're actually concentrated doses of wisdom. To which I add one of my own: "You can't un-ring a bell."

From CEB Views: Beyond the Bonus: Four Ways to Recognize and Reward with Little or No Money
"Our research shows that the number of highly disengaged employees has increased from 1 out of 10 in 2007 to 1 out of 5 in 2009. This is bad news for companies because disengagement quickly leads to decreased performance. Many leaders are throwing up their arms saying “Tough times lead to unhappy employees — what can we do?” Tough times do lead to stress and uncertainty but it’s in your power, and is in fact your responsibility, to keep employees engaged and motivated no matter what the market is doing. There has been much written about the limitations of salaries and bonuses to motivate people to work hard and produce results. If it isn’t all about money, what is it about?"

Wally's Comment: This is actually a series of three related posts. I rarely select a series of posts as a "best." In general, I think most blog posts should conform to my "Law and Order Rule." Like the series, every show should stand alone. Each of these posts does that, but they're much stronger together. I'm pointing you to the first post in the series. It contains links to the other two.

On a related note, you may want to check out my review of Dan Pink's Drive. It's essentially the same as the review I posted on Amazon. More than 300 people have found it helpful. I also wrote three related blog posts on motivation in the workplace.

Putting Drive to Work: Intrinsic Motivation

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.