From Study, Resources, and Avnet

Working as a manager in a large corporation while living and practicing at a Zen Buddhist training center with close ties to Japan, after having been an idealistic hippie, was quite a mix of value systems. One day I found a book in the ZCLA “boutique” (free store) called The Independent Scholar’s Handbook. It inspired me to start what I called my Independent Scholar’s Journal, where I tried to grapple with what I was experiencing and reading. The entries are dated from January 1985 to July 1991. I spent a lot of time at the USC library, got a card, and checked out a lot of books about business and values.

During this period I met Riley Sinder at work and became involved in the manuscript he and his friend Ronnie were working on, which eventually  became a major book, Leadership Without Easy Answers. The book formed the foundation for the Leadership Program at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Riley and I had long talks about organizational dynamics as he and Ronnie were working out their theory. At the same time, an old friend from the Zen Center entered the Stanford doctoral program in Organizational Behavior and I seriously considered applying. 

I haven’t looked at this thick Journal in years, but I hope to integrate some of it into this site.