Creating a Mentoring Program: Mentoring Partnerships Across the Generations

Chapter 1

Introduction

If you enter “mentoring” in the search engine of a major online bookseller, you will receive 10,261 results. By adding the word “business” and narrowing the search, you will still have 263 results. Mentoring in a great variety of arenas appears to be a very hot topic, but why? Ensher and Murphy (2005) pointed out that it seems like a fad, here today and gone tomorrow, along with all of the help books and hype. But we would argue that it’s here to stay, and adds true value. Mentoring can be a great tool to prepare the next generation of leaders, share intellectual capital, pass on organizational history, and engage employees ...