What Steve Jobs, a Yogi, family therapy and a scientist studying consciousness can tell us about family business.

When Steve Jobs died in 2011, people attending his memorial service were given a small brown box.

Inside was a book.

It was not about computers.

It was not about Apple.

It was not about business.

The book was Autobiography of a Yogi, written by Paramahansa Yogananda and first published in 1946.

Jobs had first read the book when he was young. He returned to it many times during his life.

So, one of the people most closely linked with modern technology kept returning to a book about meditation, consciousness, karma, spiritual development and the nature of reality.

Why?

And what could such a book possibly have to do with a family business?

Quite a lot.

But first we need to be clear about something.

This Is Not a Science Book

Yogananda tells some extraordinary stories.

There are miraculous healings.

People appear in strange places.

There are accounts of unusual states of consciousness.

A scientist would quite reasonably ask for evidence.

That is what science does.

Science tests things.

It measures.

It compares.

It asks whether an idea could be wrong.

So Autobiography of a Yogi should not be treated as a modern science book.

But this does not make it useless.

For much of history, science, mathematics and philosophy were much closer together than they are today.

Isaac Newton's great book was called The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.

People once used philosophy to ask many of the big questions that later became part of science.

• What is the world made of?

• How do things move?

• What can we know?
  
  Other questions remain philosophical.
  
  

• What makes a good life?

• What is consciousness?

• How much money is enough?

• What do parents owe their children?

• When does helping someone become controlling them?

A spreadsheet cannot answer those questions.

And family businesses are full of them.

Yogananda Was Asking a Bigger Question

It is easy to turn Yogananda into a modern self-help writer.

• Meditate.

• Become calm.

• Trust yourself.

• Find your potential.

But his idea was much bigger.

Yogananda believed that a human life is part of a much longer spiritual journey.

He believed in karma and reincarnation.

He also believed that the ordinary ego — the feeling that “I am completely separate from everyone else” — does not show us the deepest truth about who we are.

For him, the goal was not simply to become a happier individual.

It was to discover a deeper form of consciousness.

You may agree with that.

You may disagree.

Either response is fine.

The important point is to understand the question he was asking.

Donald Hoffman Asks a Strange Question Too

This is where the scientist Donald D. Hoffman becomes interesting.

Hoffman studies perception and consciousness.

He argues that evolution may not have designed us to see reality exactly as it is.

It may simply have given us a useful way of dealing with it.

He compares this with a computer screen.

You may see a blue folder on your desktop.

The blue folder is useful.

You can click it.

Move it.

Delete it.

But there is no tiny blue cardboard folder inside your computer.

It is an interface.

It hides a much more complicated reality.

Hoffman asks whether our everyday world may work in a similar way.

That idea alone is interesting.

But he goes much further.

He asks:

If what we see is only an interface, what lies behind it?

Hoffman has developed a very bold theory in which consciousness may be more basic than matter, objects and even spacetime.

This has not been proved.

It does not prove Yogananda right.

It does not prove God, karma or reincarnation.

But Hoffman has the courage to ask a scientific question about the nature of being itself.

Yogananda and Hoffman come from very different directions.

Yet both warn us about the same mistake:

Do not assume that what seems obvious is the whole of reality.

That thought becomes surprisingly useful inside a family business.

We All Look Through Filters

Imagine a father who runs a family company.

He says:

“My daughter is not ready to take over.”

Perhaps he has good reasons.

She has made mistakes.

She avoids difficult conversations.

She lacks experience.

But he may also be looking through a filter.

He may still see:

my little girl;

the child who used to need me;

the person who will replace me;

the person who might lose everything I built.

His daughter looks at him.

She may see:

the father who never trusts me;

the man who cannot let go;

the person standing between me and my adult life.

Both may have some truth on their side.

Both may also be looking through old filters.

Then something happens.

Dad checks everything she does.

She becomes annoyed and stops telling him things.

Dad discovers that she has kept information from him.

He now trusts her even less.

So he checks more.

She withdraws more.

Round they go.

This is where family systems thinking becomes useful.

Sometimes the Problem Is Between People

A systems therapist may look at the father and daughter and ask a different question.

Instead of:

“Which one of them is the problem?”

the therapist asks:

“What pattern are they creating together?”

Dad becomes anxious.

Anxiety makes him controlling.

His control makes Daughter withdraw.

Her withdrawal makes Dad more anxious.

The pattern keeps itself alive.

Change the pattern and both people may begin to change.

This is very different from saying that Dad is simply bad or Daughter is simply difficult.

The relationship matters.

Psychoanalysis Looks Somewhere Else

A psychoanalyst might look at the same father and ask:

1. Why does letting go frighten him so much?

2. What does retirement mean to him?

3. Does he feel that being needed is the same as being loved?

4. Does Daughter's independence remind him of something older?

Systems theory looks strongly at what happens between people.

Psychoanalysis looks strongly at what happens inside the person.

Both can be useful.

A wound may sit inside someone.

A relationship may keep touching it.

And Yogananda Uses Another Language Again

Yogananda might say that the same business conflict gives both father and daughter an opportunity for development.

Dad may need to loosen his attachment to control.

Daughter may need to deal with fear, anger or her own idea of independence.

Yogananda might also place their meeting, conflict and eventual change inside a larger idea of karma.

A family therapist does not need to believe any of that.

Yet both may notice the same result.

• Dad becomes less controlling.

• Daughter becomes less defensive.

• The relationship improves.

Different explanations.

Same family.

A Simple Human Map

This is why a simple Human Map may help.

It is not a new psychological theory.

It is only a way of remembering that several things may be happening at once.

There is:

The person — with a history, fears, hopes and habits.

The filter — the way the person sees what is happening.

The relationship — what happens between people.

The pattern — what keeps happening again and again.

The context — family, business, culture and circumstances.

The meaning — what events mean to the people involved.

Development — the possibility that something can change.

The important point is that all of these affect one another.

A person changes a relationship.

The relationship changes the person.

The person then enters the next situation differently.

Round it goes.

The Observer Has a Filter Too

There is another problem.

Therapists, consultants and researchers also look through filters.

Family therapist Jay Haley once wrote an essay called The Power Tactics of Jesus Christ.

Haley looked at Jesus through ideas about power, strategy, leadership and influence.

This produced an interesting view.

But was Jesus mainly a power strategist?

Or did Haley's own theory make power especially easy for him to see?

Later, Donald Capps examined Haley's argument again through another lens.

This gives us a useful warning.

• A therapist trained to see family triangles may find triangles.

• A psychoanalyst may find unconscious conflict.

• A financial adviser may see an ownership problem.

• A spiritual teacher may see ego or karma.

• Each may notice something valuable.

• Each may also miss something.

A useful rule is:

A lens can help us see. It should not make us believe we have seen everything.

Change Can Feel Worse Before It Feels Better

Suppose Dad finally gives his son more control of the business.

Good news?

Perhaps.

But the son may suddenly become more anxious.

Employees may still go straight to Dad.

Dad may feel useless.

Mum may worry that Dad has lost his purpose.

Managers may wonder who is really in charge.

For a while, the family may feel worse.

That does not always mean the change has failed.

Old family patterns create stability.

Even unhealthy patterns can feel safe because everybody knows their role.

So calm does not always mean health.

A family can become very calm when everyone starts obeying Dad again.

A better goal may be:

greater freedom from repeating the same old response automatically.

What Changes Now May Affect the Next Generation

This may be the most important point for a family business.

Families pass down much more than money.

They pass down ways of behaving.

Grandfather controls Father.

Father promises never to become like Grandfather.

Then Father becomes controlling in his own way.

His daughter fights him.

Years later she discovers a similar fight with her own child.

No one planned this.

But the pattern travelled.

The reverse can happen too.

Suppose Father learns to disagree without withdrawing love.

His daughter learns that authority does not always mean control.

Years later she deals differently with her own children.

Something healthier has travelled forward.

Systems theory may call this a change in an intergenerational pattern.

Psychoanalysis may explain it differently.

Yogananda may use the language of karma.

But all can recognise something simple:

Change in one generation can change what becomes possible for the next.

That is extremely important in family business.

Succession passes on far more than shares.

It can pass on:

• Fear.

• Trust.

• Control.

• Freedom.

• Duty.

• Guilt.

• Confidence.

And ideas about what love requires.

Yogananda Had This Problem in His Own Family

Yogananda's father was a senior railway executive.

He was successful.

Responsible.

Careful with money.

Naturally, he had plans for his son.

A good railway job was available.

His son refused it.

Yogananda wanted to become a monk.

You can move the conversation into a modern family business very easily.

Dad says:

“There is a good place for you here.”

The child hears:

“My life has already been decided.”

The parent sees an opportunity.

The child feels an obligation.

Later, Yogananda's father saw the school his son had created and changed his view.

He could see that his son had found his own work.

That gives us a simple family-business lesson:

Passing on an opportunity is generous. Assigning someone else's life is different.

Sunday Morning and Monday Morning

Yogananda also writes about Lahiri Mahasaya, a spiritual teacher who remained a husband, father and working man.

His spiritual life did not sit in a separate box.

He had to live it while working and dealing with other people.

Think about someone who goes to a religious centre on Sunday.

He hears about honesty.

Compassion.

Humility.

Forgiveness.

Then on Monday his brother challenges him over money.

His son rejects the succession plan.

An employee makes an expensive mistake.

Suddenly the Sunday lessons become harder.

That does not always mean the person is a hypocrite.

It may mean that Monday activates an older and stronger pattern.

This is where spiritual ideas and systems thinking can meet without becoming the same thing.

Yogananda asks:

What kind of person are you becoming inside this difficulty?

Systems theory asks:

What are you and the people around you repeatedly creating together?

The Inner Balance Sheet

Family businesses are usually good at measuring the visible things.

• Sales.

• Profit.

• Debt.

• Property.

• Growth.

• Cash.

• Market value.

And there is another balance sheet.

• What is the business doing to the family?

• Does it help children become capable adults?

• Or does it keep them dependent?

• Does Dad still own the business?

• Or has the business started to own Dad?

• Does wealth create freedom?

• Or obligation?

• Does succession offer a future?

• Or assign one?

• Does winning a boardroom argument cost a relationship?

• How much money is enough?

Science can help us understand parts of these problems.

Systems thinking can show us repeating patterns.

Psychoanalysis can help us think about hidden meanings.

Hoffman can ask whether the world we take for granted is as simple as it looks.

Yogananda can ask whether the separate individual we take for granted is the deepest truth about who we are.

None of them needs to defeat the others.

Perhaps the useful lesson is much simpler.

Look again.

Look at the person.

Look at the filter.

Look at the relationship.

Look at the pattern.

Look at what it means.

And look at what might be passed to the next generation.

That may be the real inner balance sheet of a family business.

Want to Go Further?

This article gives the short version.

A longer academic paper accompanies it. The paper explores Yogananda, Donald D. Hoffman, family systems theory, psychoanalysis, Jay Haley, Donald Capps and the proposed Human Map in much greater depth, with full references.

It is intended for readers who want to examine the ideas, differences and evidence more closely.

The short version asks one practical question:

What are we passing on besides the business?

Download the full paper here.