The Teacher

They are heavy hitters. Most of them have won what Harvard Business School promised them many years ago: power, status, wealth.

Still, something big is missing. They have worked for decades to reach the pinnacle of their profession -- yet, rather than feeling empowered by achievements, they feel enslaved by commitments. How much is enough? Many have huge option packages, some own villas in Tuscany -- yet such financial assets and material comforts yield neither real fulfillment nor true meaning. Is that all there is?

To find out, these Masters of the Universe go back to school. Once a year, 30 to 40 gray-around-the-temples executives troop to Boston to bare their souls at Odyssey, a Harvard Business School offering calculated to provoke midlife introspection and, in some cases, career redirection. Their confessor: Shoshana Zuboff.

Zuboff, a social psychologist, leads her charges through two weeks of exploration -- first, among themselves, in a classroom; and later, along with spouses, at such venues as the Black Point Inn Resort, in Prouts Neck, Maine. The readings are diverse -- from research on adult development to case studies of figures like Donald Burr, founder of People Express Airlines. For most participants, it's an emotional ordeal. For some of them, it's a life-changing epiphany. For all of them, it's an opportunity to wrestle with "enoughness."

Zuboff, 47, has been there herself. Until recently, she and her husband, Jim Maxmin, led whirling transatlantic lives. She wrote a now-classic book, "In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power" (Basic Books, 1988), which brought her acclaim and tenure. In London, Maxmin ran Thorn EMI's consumer-electronics business.Then he led a turnaround effort at Laura Ashley Holdings, a long-troubled British retailer.

But in 1994, Maxmin left Laura Ashley after clashing with the company's founding chairman. For her part, Zuboff had become unhappy with how little time she was able to spend with her two-year-old daughter, Chloe. So the couple decided that it was time for a change. They moved to Nobleboro, Maine, a one-stoplight hamlet 90 minutes north of Portland, and built a house on the shore of Lake Damariscotta.

From this outpost, they steward an investment fund that targets electronic-commerce opportunities. Zuboff has shifted to part-time status at Harvard, where she holds the Charles Edward Wilson chair in business administration. Along with caring for Chloe, now 7, and Jacob, 4, she consults with corporate clients. She also spends five hours a day at her lakeside cabin, where she is writing a book on wealth, work, and identity (to be published by Viking). Between chapters, she talked with Fast Company about the lessons that people learn in the Odyssey program.

Name Your Price

Near the start of each Odyssey class, I pose the question "How much is enough? How much net worth would you need to consider changing your life -- so that you could do what you want?" You hear lots of different numbers: Some people say "$20 million." Others say "$200 million." But most people are reluctant to settle on a number. They say it's a moving target: "I used to think it was $1 million, but when I got there, I realized it was $10 million."

That's a defense mechanism. As long as we think that we don't have enough money, we don't feel free to ask the important questions about our lives. We use that rationalization to protect ourselves from the fearsome fact that we do have the ability to make choices.

From "Who Am I?" to "Who Am I Becoming?"

To start down this path, we need to create enough time for personal reflection. I ask Odyssey students to sit down before they start the course and to write the story of their life. They review all of their important experiences. This isn't about discovering "who I am." It's about discovering "who I've been" -- which is a prelude to finding out "who I'm becoming." I reject any static view of personality. You have to understand the dynamics that have energized your life and how they've changed over the years. Then you can begin to see the change that will shape the next phase of your life. In the first week of Odyssey, students generate data about themselves by writing, by speaking, and by analyzing pictures and symbols. We mine their autobiographies to understand the larger patterns in their lives and to get different perspectives on the truth.