"You must know the myth you are living," Loren G. Carlson told the group of more than 50 members of CEO Roundtable, LLC^®, who had gathered at the Babson Executive Conference Center in Wellesley during March for the annual CEO Roundtable retreat. 

Carlson, the founder and chairman of CEO Roundtable, chose "The Readiness is All:  Exploring the Power of Myth to Shape our Being" as the theme of this year’s retreat.

Carlson began the two-day event by describing the "myth" he had been living earlier in his own career with a Fortune 500 company that was, in fact, thought to be one of the most powerful "gods on Mount Olympus." Minor gods (smaller corporations and interests) lobbed arrows at it, Carlson said. But, instead of fighting the enemies, the powers-that-be fought among themselves. Ultimately the technology the company had created destroyed the god – it was like being eaten by our children, he said. The result was the biggest divestiture and the biggest change in business to date.

"I was living in the middle of a myth," Carlson told the CEOs. "I was living in the time when the world’s greatest company was producing the world’s best communication service. But new myths came along. This seminar is about taking account of the myths we are living and the myths that are developing."

The seminar was led by poet-philosopher David Whyte and by Kevin Coleman, education director of Shakespeare & Company.

Whyte began the first day session by empowering the CEOs to have courageous conversations:  conversations that include questions that try to emancipate us to our futures; questions that have no right to go away; questions that can make or unmake a life.

Whyte said the chief executive must also be the chief conversationalist. It is the power of conversations that draws people together. There are stories outside the company that are always changing and there are stories in the company that are always changing. The chief conversationalist must be the chief storyteller.

Kevin Coleman said theater predates just about everything. He noted how important the conversations around the prehistoric campfires must have been: early man acting out how to kill the woolly mammoth and the need to repeat the stories, because the people’s very survival and existence depended on those stories.

Coleman noted that all myth actually looks at the multi-faceted aspects of mankind. The myths are really about you. Walking into the Pantheon, seeing all the gods, you actually are looking at all the aspects of you.

Just as Coleman said that myths are about the unknown, Whyte said the courageous conversations are with the unknown.

Whyte said the opening lines of the play Hamlet – "Stand and unfold yourself" – reflect the reality of post-modern leadership and the need to know yourself, your virtues, powers and vulnerabilities. The powers within may remain unspoken, so there is great need to have the conversations. The courageous conversations promote us beyond our comfort zone into the realm of human relationships. This can be frightening for professionals who are accustomed to controlling their universe or to living in a very ordered universe.

Whyte warned that not to ask the question is to assume no one else is alive, that you must do this alone when others’ very existence has said there are people to help you, to have the conversation with you. It is so complex today, you must ask for help, he said.

Whyte admonished the group, "Stop trying not to be lost." You see new things when you are lost. When your life is at stake, you start paying attention. Only when Psyche reaches despair does she find the qualities within her that she needs for survival: the ant’s industriousness, the reed’s practicality.

And, Whyte warned that the conversations you have at 20 or 30 years old are very different from your conversation at 50 or 60. The great mistake is to recapitulate the conversations of youth: we need a different, robust conversation now. There is no immunity to the great conversations of life; this is what the myths tell us. And to have those conversations, we must cultivate robust vulnerability. 

Whyte says giving yourself over to a grand conversation will redefine you. As Coleman explained, Parsifal failed to ask the question the first time he was at the Grail Castle. His conversation with the hag as she recounted everything he had done wrong, ultimately led to the hag giving Parsifal the directions to the path that could lead him to the Grail Castle again.

Whyte also advised that conversations will be different. Some take moments, some months, or a year. Some conversations do not belong to you alone. And he pointed out that men’s idea of a good workplace is to eliminate the conversation and give orders. That worked then, but not now. Now the conversation, the women’s approach, is the approach that works best in post-modern times. The women’s challenge is to find their own voices among all the voices they are hearing.
In breakout groups, the CEOs explored the questions they are asking and the questions they are not asking professionally and personally. They also took on the challenge to determine what the future myths will be.

Carlson concluded that CEOs must move out into the unknown with courage to have those conversations in our companies and communities, and accept being lost, knowing that you will be found, and that "everything is waiting for you" – the title of one of Whyte’s poems. Emphasizing two of the most important themes of the two-day event, Carlson said it is necessary to have the courageous conversations and cultivate robust vulnerability.

About CEO Roundtable, LLC^®’s Annual Retreats
"My goal is to offer the CEOs a richer perspective on their own challenges and their own human-ness," Carlson said. "In these annual retreats, it is always my goal to encourage the CEO Roundtable members to take time for themselves in the wholeness of mind-body-soul and their role in society."

About CEO Roundtable, LLC^®
CEO Roundtable® brings CEOs, presidents and company owners together each month in professionally facilitated peer groups of 8 to 12 members from non-competing companies for invigorating exchanges of information, ideas and insights. CEO Roundtable^® conducts groups that include general business, biotech/pharma, and high tech.  For more information, contact Loren Carlson at 978-685-8743 or visit www.CEO-Roundtable.com.