Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes - Lessons in Motivations, Brand Promises, and Culture.

Thomas Hobbes was a 17th-century English materialist philosopher who has continued to be influential in our politics and government. The name 'philosophical materialist' might have you believe that his philosophy would be based on comforts and/or the acquirement of items, but those are only small footnotes to what Thomas Hobbes felt were our motivations. Materialists are better thought of as people that believe the universe is a sort of massive machine and each component is programmed to do a role. "Leviathan" in particular aims to break down the motivations and structures of man into it's smallest parts first and then slowly expand from the inner workings of man, to man's place in society, and then to society and its position under god or the universe. In other words, he starts at the smallest machine he was aware of and then gradually works his way out to the larger machines that we are apart of. 

Lesson 1 - The motivations of man are desire, aversion, and fear. 

Thomas Hobbes argues that to properly describe something you must use language in sequential order and that if you didn't follow a logical order then it would be impossible to understand what was being described. To put it in machine terms, he is arguing that for things to run smoothly, man as a machine must abide by certain logical motions or movements to work in harmony with others. Imagine you were trying to describe where you currently were to a friend. If you said, "park, on, the, live, I, street, grocery, store, next, to," your friend would be really confused. If instead, you said "I live next to the grocery store on park street", the agreed-upon sequential order of things helps these two machines work in harmony. Hobbes then has us take a step back and imagines that if we accept things have a natural sequential logical order to them, then we immediately understand that there are cause and effect. 

'If-this-then-that' allows us to look ahead of the present logical order of things and make forecasts to predict what may happen by observing natural motions further down the line of future sequential movements. In other words, once we understand that a domino has hit another, we can look further down to see when the last domino might fall. While we start with forecasting and prediction, this realization of cause and effect ultimately gives us ideas to what we could have and subsequently creates what Hobbes says are the main motivations that drive our behavior as machines; desires, and aversions. Once we see clouds coming in and they begin darkening, we first may predict that rain is coming, but then our aversion to rain will motivate us to either stay indoors or to bring an umbrella.  

Similarly, we might observe a shortage in rain and forecast that there will be a shortage of crops or food the following season which motivates us to store more food to make it through difficult times. Those that do this well and consistently acquire what they desire and this what Hobbes defines as power. As you do this consistently and resources become more scarce competition will increase and form the creation of rivalries. Since there is only so much food to go around and you and your clan were smart enough to prepare for it, you can also logically conclude rivals may try and take it from you. This competition then leads to fighting and through fighting we find the ultimate motivator which is our aversion to death, or fear. 

Lesson 2 - We have to give up freedom to secure more usable freedom. (Social Contract = Brand Promise)

To coexist with each other and mitigate our largest motivator (fear of death) or achieve peace, Hobbes argues that we must give up basic human rights to secure freedom. This might seems contradictory, but on the extreme end consider our freedom as humans to kill whomever we'd like at any time, it's that level of freedom that creates so much fear that everyone is scared to do anything. If everyone woke up every day with an expectation or prediction of getting murdered, society would have a hard time overcoming that fear to leave their house let alone interact with each other. The solution to this is that society agrees to give up some freedoms like murder or theft, and by doing so the result is less fear which allows society to function freely. While we may have less total freedoms because we've given up some of them, the net benefit to society is more usable freedoms that remain. In other words, Hobbes is arguing for the golden rule, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" as the basis for a functioning society.

In other words, Hobbes is arguing for the golden rule, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" as the basis for a functioning free society. 

Lesson 3 - Society (or organizations) needs culture and culture needs a strong centralized power to enforce it.

The problem is that neighbors will quickly realize that there is no guarantee in place that they will both follow the golden rule. If there is still a threat that someone in society is above the social contract or breaks it, then this causes a cascade effect of no one abiding by the contract and fear will become once again a primary motivator resulting in society no longer being harmonious. This then leads to the creation of 'culture' or the norms, behaviors, and expectations that are part of society. When more participants in society have more similarities then forecasting and prediction of behavior increases. The more homogeneous the society the more predictable and forecast-able which further mitigates suspicion of breaking the social contract. In the opposite direction, if people fail to adopt the cultural norms of a society, the unfamiliarity will result in less reliable prediction, which then will breed fear of breaking the social contract, which can once again result in chaos. 

So who gets to decide the cultural norms? This is where Hobbes argues that there has to be a centralized power that upholds this mutually agreed upon social contract and he calls that a 'Leviathan' or a 'Sovereign'. 

Surprisingly, he does argue that monarchies or dictatorships have vastly superior strength compared to democracies in their ability to act consistently and quickly.

Surprisingly, he does argue that monarchies or dictatorships have vastly superior strength compared to democracies in their ability to act consistently and quickly. If there was suspicion that someone or some part of society was breaking the social contract then the time spent deliberating on what to do results in a longer time that the system is vulnerable to chaos. On the other hand, monarchies or dictatorships have one brain and are more likely to quickly come to a conclusion. Even though he advocates for centralizing decisions, the sovereign isn't just an all-powerful individual and instead to maximize power it's better to think of the sovereign as a larger machine that is an accumulation of smaller ones. If we personified a sovereign then the limbs might be the army, the head the government, and the cells individuals, but more importantly, it also shows that harm to one creates harm to all and that breaking the contract creates an equal amount of self-harm as it does societal harm. 

Does it sell cars? Surprisingly, Yes.

While on the surface Leviathan might seem like a book focused strictly on politics, governmental structures and society you can really take its lessons and apply them to any organization. As Thomas Hobbes does, let's look at a business or a dealership as a societal machine. Starting with the smallest machines, the employees and the customers, all components of the dealership machine must work in harmony in order to create a maximum in transactions. While we typically use 'if-this-then-that' in a four-square or negotiation (if I get you to $412 a month do we have a deal?) we should also consider that there are more cause and effect scenarios happening that lead to desires, outcomes, and fears motivating both sides of the transaction then the car alone. For example, a common one would be a salesperson who may have fears that they will be fired and left without resources, but what about their desire to advance in their career? If they can't visibly see a cause and effect relationship between their actions to advancement in their career, what are the chances that fear may creep in and create an aversion to the job altogether? (Reminder we have 80% turn over in that role). From a customer standpoint, sure they want $412 a month, but why? Customers aren't just motivated by payments, they could be motivated to look smart, or to have predictable transportation, or to look powerful. How are we exploring these motivations?

When we start having a better idea of the foundation and overlap of these motivations, we can create a social contract which in business is just called 'branding'. Your brand should be a promise that eases the primary desires, aversions or fears of your consumer. You'll know you've done a great job isolating these motivations when your consumer starts giving up their freedoms in exchange for less fear or more predictability. The more things they give up, the better you've done at creating a brand. If they give up their freedom to cross-shopping, you've won reputation. If they give up their freedom to negotiating, you've won trust, If they give up their freedom to buy from someone else, you've won loyalty. If you've won all of these you've created a powerful brand promise. If you want an example, watch the next time a friend or family member comes to buy a car from your dealership, I guarantee they have the fastest, easiest, happiest experience and were willing to give up some of their freedoms (to shop elsewhere or negotiate) because they knew you 'would do unto others as you would have them do unto you' and uphold your brand promise. What would happen if every customer was treated like friends and family are? How do we make sure everyone believes your brand promise?

Once your 'dealership society' has isolated the primary motivations for both customers and employees and created a social contract (brand promise) around those motivations, we need a way to ensure that employees behave an expected way in certain circumstances, and this is nothing more than work culture. What behaviors of your employees don't align with the brand promise and subsequently create fear or suspicion in the consumer's mind? Do some of your employees get to play by different rules? Why? How do you want your employees to respond in tough circumstances like negotiation or cross-shopping? If you want to find an example of this look no further then Jarrod Kilway at Germain Automotive Group who has been a longtime user of the Prodigy Digital Retailing Platform. When we were discussing culture, he once told me that when someone didn't show up with their iPad and asked to borrow an extra he instead sent them home. His justification was that if they didn't come prepared to back their brands promise that it would be more detrimental to the culture of the dealership to allow the nonconformity to the behavior they want to instill then to be down a body that day. That's a leviathan.