In 1978, when I started creating formalized mentor-protege partnerships, I did not know that mentors and preteges needed training.  So, I didn't provide any!  Nearly all the literature on mentoring at that time described informal mentoring-- the kind that just happens, spontaneously and naturally without any training. So I simply asked for volunteers, matched them as mentor-protege partners, gave them a brief pep, and sent them on their way!

But follow up interviews showed that the relationships failed. Mentors and proteges separately reported: Our relationship got stuck.

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