Essay - Innovative Mentoring Creating Innovation Within Jobs can be Difficult in...

Innovative Mentoring

Creating innovation within jobs can be difficult in some career tracks. In government work, for *****stance, a person may have to ***** within rules that affect not only his or her department but the o*****r departments affecting that person's w*****k. Nevertheless, ***** can occur in an individual's work style. One place where managers can create change within a bure*****ucracy is in mentoring.

Part of a manager's job is to train new employees in the department. This ***** ***** a perfunctory exercise with efficiency as its goal. Such an approach will involve teaching ***** person the technical ropes. ***** government this c***** include learning how to apply complex regulations as well as learning ***** to ***** ********** regulatory restrictions ***** come from outside one's department. However, by adding an aspect of *****, it is possible to create a feeling ***** connection to one's department that c***** lead to increased job satisfaction for the new employee. It may also help keep valued ***** within one's department instead of losing them to other branches ***** the government agency.

***** mentors and mentees prefer a formal mentoring arrangement, where a new ***** is p*****ired with a more *****dvanced ***** at the executive or high managerial level. They set goals ***** have regular meetings. Often they do not work together during the day (Smith et. al., 2005). This is not always a practical solution in government, and there can be advantages to a m*****nager taking a mentor relationship with new employees.

Some businesses have taken a more informal approach to **********, where the natural leaders take ***** under their wing (Pielstick, 2002), but that also *****es not always ***** ***** highly structured bureaucracies. In the Department of Defense, the *****sues involved, for instance in generating contracts, is complex ***** ***** ***** both complicated and essential. In such a situation, it ***** be important for new employees to be led ***** people in charge of the larger picture for a *****.

One ***** to ***** a ***** could be to use men*****ring to, as Heimann and Pittenger (2000) say, 'nurture ***** talents of younger subordinates." When looking at mentoring within a restricted popul*****ion, such as one specific sub-department in a l*****rge bureaucracy like the Department of Defense, focusing on each new employee's talents ***** be tremendously valuable in ***** long run. For *****, pro*****reading is often considered an entry-level skill, ***** when evaluating government contracts, the skill takes on new meaning: a misplaced decimal can end up costing the ***** millions of dollars. Spotting that employee who has the ability to spot finance-related errors and ********** that person develop those skills can make the person a tremendous *****sset to his or her department.

***** a department head or leader ment***** all ***** *****s, however, seems to fly in the face of what most people think of as mentoring -- a one-on-one relationship that endures, possibly over years, with the mentor ***** special interest in the progress of the mentee. However, some experts ***** *****