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It seems as though every time I turn around someone is mentioning mentoring as a solution to poor performance and training.  I recently ran across the following blog post by a programmer/developer, which in many ways supports the guidance given in the Manager Tools podcasts about mentoring:  

http://pindancing.blogspot.com/2010/12/answer-to-will-you-mentor-me-is.html

The bottom line is that in order to help someone, they need to take the first steps.  Way too many people start by saying something like "I need a mentor in X."  What they really mean is that they need to go take a course, because they know nothing about X.  They don't need a mentor, they need a trainer/educator/coach.