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FOREWORD

It is now a commonly accepted truism that the corporation is more than a legal entity engaged in the production and sale of goods and services for profit. It is also the embodiment of the principles and beliefs of the men and women who give it substance. More particularly, the corporation is the expression of those who have given it leadership in its development and in the conduct of its affairs.

Perhaps no corporation is more illustrative of these characteristics than the International Business Machines Corporation. Engaged as it is in advanced scientific development, as an organization it is nevertheless governed in its daily affairs by the verities of human relations. Enduring truths of personal conduct learned early by the company’s founder in an uncomplicated rural community setting have successfully served as management guidelines in the development of a highly complex business organization which operates in the most scientific areas of contemporary times.

The interesting story of this remarkable experience in the business world is told with perception and enthusiasm by the Corporation’s present chief executive officer, Mr. Thomas J. Watson, Jr. Technological change in its field has been unbelievably rapid, and the growth of the company has been remarkable. In fifteen postwar years gross sales have increased by a factor of fourteen. It is one thing to hold firmly to guiding beliefs in a static situation; it is harder to do so in a dynamic and ever-changing one. Respect for the individual may be just as great, but it is far more difficult to assure that it is given expression. Dedication to service acquires new dimensions and takes new forms, and the task of convincing new employees of its prime importance is formidable. The effort to achieve superiority in all activities is progressively more challenged as the range of activity is extended. The manner in which management has adapted its basic beliefs to the company’s rapid development serves convincingly to reaffirm their validity.

These essays have grown out of the lectures presented at the Columbia Graduate School of Business in the spring of 1962. Sponsored jointly by the School and the McKinsey Foundation for Management Research, Inc., they were part of the continuing series on the management of large organizations that has become so well known in recent years.

The thinking of a man with the inquisitive and vigorous mind of Mr. Watson would naturally extend beyond the boundaries of internal company affairs. His observations on the role of the modern corporation in the society that gives it sanction share equal place with his insights on business management. The reader of this volume will find it to be a forthright expression of the enlightened attitudes of business leaders in the Western World—attitudes that serve as our most effective defense of the free way of life.

COURTNEY C. BROWN
Dean, Graduate School of Business
Columbia University

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The personalities of corporations and their founders are often inseparable; one is frequently an extension of the other. Certainly this was true of IBM and Thomas J. Watson, Sr. They combined to make an American business legend. This legend continued into a second generation under the firm hand of Thomas J. Watson, Jr.

A better than two-billion dollar a year global business, the present IBM is as different from the IBM of a relatively few years ago as the prewar America is from today. It was the younger Watson who played a large hand in fitting the company to the changed environment.

He was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1914 and made his first speech at an IBM sales meeting when he was twelve. After graduating from Brown University in 1937, Watson became an IBM salesman in downtown Manhattan. Fourteen months before the United States, entered World War II, he went on active service and became a B-24 pilot. An airplane enthusiast, he had been flying since his college years.

During the period before the war, Thomas J. Watson, Jr. had more than held his own in a company that prides itself on salesmanship. In 1946 he was made a vice president. He became president in 1952, chief executive officer in 1956, and continued in that latter post as chairman of the board until 1971, a year after suffering a heart attack.

Like his father, Watson’s interests ranged beyond his corporation to wide areas of public concern. He served as a trustee of a number of organizations and was a member of the President’s Advisory Committee on Labor Management Policy.

Watson died in Greenwich, Connecticut, on December 31, 1993 of complications following a stroke. He was seventy-nine.

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