Modern Mentoring

INTRODUCTION

Inception

This book has been gestating in my mind for the last 35 years. For me, mentoring is very personal and rooted in my career history. Had I not had the persistent guidance and influence of a network of more experienced practitioners throughout my career, I feel confident that I would have been doomed to a life of underachievement. Just like the Grateful Dead took their experiences of traveling on the road and turned them into the lyric, “What a long, strange trip it’s been,” I likewise have been on a long quest to create more effective learning relationships.

I enlisted in the U.S. Navy right out of high school and became a fabricator and welder, following my father’s advice that I should learn a trade. My father was a machinist ...