Not Your Typical Organizational Dynamics Student

I was never a prototypical OD student.  Starting out in the late 1980’s as a twenty-something who had just completed his MBA, I was among the youngest members of the OD program.  I valued the skills that my MBA degree provided me, but I soon realized that aspiring leaders needed to know the right questions to ask.  It was for this reason that I pursued my MSOD.

Shortly after starting the program, I was given an overseas assignment.  At the time, Europe was unifying in the West and the Soviet Empire was crumbling in the East. It was an amazing time and place for a young professional but the assignment put my MSOD at risk.  Fortunately, I was able to continue by taking international seminars and even used my MSOD Capstone to create a strategic European blueprint for my employer.  This plan led to the creation of three international organizations which I was asked to lead.

This experience gave me the confidence to form my own entrepreneurial venture.  After my venture was sold, I found myself as a fifty-something enrolled as an MPhil student with students twenty years my junior asking myself “what’s next?”.  My MPhil Capstone provided me the answer; to teach aspiring entrepreneurs.

– Robert J. Knorr III