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 by Scott Eblin, Art Petty, Ed Batista, Ken Downer, and Kate Nasser.

From Scott Eblin: How to Avoid Delivering the Dreaded Feedback Sandwich

“If you’re a manager (or a coach for that matter) delivering tough feedback is sometimes part of the job. Delivering feedback sandwiches that start with a lot of happy talk, sneak in a little bit of constructive criticism and then end with more happy talk doesn’t do anyone any good. You owe it to your team member, your organization and yourself to deliver straight-up meaty feedback that can be understood and acted upon.”

From Art Petty: Rethinking New Manager Training and Development

“Specifically, I challenge new managers to learn a fresh set of operating instructions different from those they employed as contributors, and bring those operating instructions to their new roles where real learning occurs. I call this the New Manager’s Operating System, and it consists of five instruction sets which I share below.”

From Ed Batista: Rules Aren’t Norms (On Company Values)

“A theme in my practice is the CEO who wants to clarify their company’s values, typically as a way to help employees navigate complex situations by encouraging certain behaviors (and discouraging others). They may draft a version of the values on their own or in partnership with their executive team, but they generally gather input from employees to try to ensure that the values are truly shared. They may conduct surveys on the topic, hold a series of related workshops, or make it the focus of an offsite. Sometimes all this effort results in a common understanding of what’s best for the company and a clear set of actionable principles. And sometimes it results in a high-minded ‘values statement’ that’s the equivalent of the sign above. Why does this happen? And what can be done about it?”

From Ken Downer: Boosting Team Performance: 3 Ways to Make Your Team’s Engine More Powerful

“What do jet engines and work teams have in common? If either generate too much heat, they will self-destruct. Aeronautical engineers found a surprising way to adapt their engines so they could handle more heat and operate at higher capacities. Today we’ll look at three ways to apply their approach to leadership, and boost our own team performance.”

From Kate Nasser: Adaptability is Genius & Generosity

“Adaptability is nature’s genius. Species that adapt evolve, survive, and thrive. Well it’s true of people too! Adapting to others in leadership, teamwork, customer service, and everyday life is brilliant and productive.”

How I Select Posts for this Midweek Review

The five posts I select to share in my Midweek Review of the Independent Business Blogs are picked from a regular review of about sixty blogs I check daily and an additional twenty-five or so that I check occasionally. Here’s how I select the posts you see in this review.

They must be published within the previous week.

They must support the purpose of the blog: to help leaders at all levels do a better job and lead a better life.

They must be from an independent business blog.

As a general rule, I only select posts that stand on their own, no selections from a series.

Also as a general rule, I do not select posts that are either a book review or a book report.

I reserve the right to make exceptions to the above.

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