Zappo's develops Networks and Promotes Mentoring.

As we learned in class, mentoring is an important tactic to strengthen organizational culture and also to help individual's own career development. To have a strong mentorship foundation, the organization needs to invest in creating  high quality relationships among the people in the organization. The strongest developmental network is the entrepreneurial network,  which consist of strong ties among several developers who come from four different social systems, such as different departments within a company.  The company, Zappos, takes a new way to  develop this kind of entrepreneurial relationship network  in order to help promote mentoring within the organization.
  Zappos promotes mentoring both through its emphasis on corporate culture as "a team and a family" and also, its socialization aspect of membership. To promote the sense of oneness within Zappos, they do three things: First, they welcome new ideas from all levels of employees, which creates openness to accept new ideas. Second, they define the role of a manager as one who removes obstacles and enables his/her direct reports to succeed.This creates a learning environment for both the manager and the employees. Third, they believe that the best team members have a positive influence on one another and everyone they encounter.  They strive to eliminate any kind of cynicism and negative interaction. They strive to create harmony with each other and with everyone else they come in contact with. This helps take away the cynical aspects of mentorship.  As Zappos quoted:　""We are more than just a team though -- we are a family. We watch out for each other, care for each other, and go above and beyond for each other because we believe in each other and we trust each other. We work together, but we also play together. Our bonds go far beyond the typical "co-worker" relationships found at most other companies"

Below is a video of the face game.







 I come into conclusion in the example of Zappos.  It was successful because of those two reasons: that mentoring is about developing personal relationships and one helping another without cynical judgments. For a relationship like that to succeed, it is important to develop an environment that supports open communication. Also, companies should look for creative ways to create more opportunities to develop and broaden employees' social network.