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 Steve Keating, Art Petty, LaRae Quy, Kate Nasser, and Tanmay Vora.

From Steve Keating: Company Culture Matters…More Than Ever

“People understand their organization’s need for increased profitability. What they don’t understand is why it seems to come at their expense.”

From Art Petty: If You’re Leading Change, Expect Flak

“In coaching senior leaders striving to lead organizational change, the cynicism, criticism, and flak are often withering, raising self-doubt and causing some to give up or scale back their ideas. My suggested reframe is to use the presence of this negativity as a barometer and then double-down on engaging the critics in constructive dialog around interests and not positions. What you uncover will help build a broader coalition for support or assessing whether your initiative may run into an immovable object.”

From LaRae Quy: How Mindfulness Can Help You Become More Efficient and Effective

“Life doesn’t come with a list of analytical comparisons. We need the tools to inform ourselves—about ourselves. One of these tools is the practice of mindfulness because mindfulness is the ability to pay attention. That’s it. It’s simply being aware of what’s happening as it’s happening. It’s not one more thing to add to an already busy day because mindfulness is a specific way of living.”

From Kate Nasser: Make Assertiveness Easy: It’s Not as Tough as You Think

“You can make assertiveness easy. It’s not as tough as you think. What stops many people from being assertive is overthinking it. Assertiveness is basically the desire and courage to speak, listen, and act clearly. It is good communication linked with action. Assertiveness is not aggressive bravado that overpowers others. It is not selfish. Here’s how to do it.”

From Tanmay Vora: How to Communicate with Brevity

“Over-explanation, too much of context setting and long meetings indicate lack of preparation before communication. For many of us, it is difficult to be brief when we write or talk. Long winded and unfocused conversations in meetings is a waste that costs us our focus and productivity.”

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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