Zaadz Quotes by Author - Thomas Watson Quotes
Thomas Watson (1874-1956) American businessman, founder of
IBM from Thomas J. Watson in Men-Minutes-Money, a Collection of Excerpts from
Talks
www.zaadz.com/quotes/authors/thomas_watson/
Famous Quotes by Thomas Watson
1. "We must never feel satisfied."
Thomas Watson (1874-1956) American businessman, founder of IBM
from Thomas J. Watson in Men-Minutes-Money, a Collection of
Excerpts from Talks . . .
2. "Time is your chief stock in trade."
3. "Success is an individual proposition."
4. "Life itself is a matter of salesmanship."
5. "The future is going to demand more of us."
6. "Make time your ally and time will make you."
7. "We progress because we are willing to change."
8. "If you want to succeed, double your failure rate."
9. "Encouragement isa a necessary part of supervision."
10. "We are all trying to learn how to do a better job."
11. "The young man requires wisdom as well as knowledge."
12. "If a man goes to work in the right spirit, work is no
hardship."
13. "The future of this business is far beyond the vision of
any of us.
14. "If we do not take advantage of our opportunities, it is
our own fault."
15. "There is more real need for the pioneering spirit today
than ever before."
16. "We must all take time to do enough thinking to formulate
our own conclusions."
17. "Business is a game, the greatest game in the world if you
know how to play it."
18. "It is better to aim at perfection and miss, than to aim
at imperfection and hit it"
19. "All the problems of the world could be settled easily if
men were only willing to think."
20. "Joining a company is an act that calls for absolute
from Thomas and Marva Belden in The Life of Thomas J.
Watson, 1962, Little, Brown and Co.
21. "The time who utilizes every minute of every hour becomes
a bigger, better being every minute."
22. "Wisdom is the power that enables us to use knowledge for
the benefit of ourselves and others."
23. "What we need in this country today is more courage and
more belief in the things that we have."
24. "The man who does not take pride in his own performance
performs nothing in which to take pride."
25. "You work the first eight hours of each day for survival.
Anything after that is an investment."
26. "Time is the substance of life - and recording it, the
most important thing with which a man has to deal."
27. "Don't make friends who are comfortable to be with. Make
friends who will force you to lever yourself up."
~ Thomas Watson (1874-1956)
28. "We must all consider ourselves as assistants, regardless
of the titles we carry in our official capacities."
29. "Nothing so conclusively proves a man's ability to lead
others as what he does from day to day to lead himself."
30. "Watson's motto at the first CTR conventions: Your company
is your friend. That is my hope and aim and ambition."
31. "Watson's motto at the first CTR conventions: Your company
is your friend. That is my hope and aim and ambition."
32. "The success of every major executive depends on the men
under him. Really successful men are pushed up, not pulled
up."
33. "None of us can hope to get anywhere without character,
moral courage and the spiritual strength to accept
responsibility."
34. "He would say over and over again that the company was not
merely a business, but "an institution that will go on
forever.""
35. "A minute has no negative qualities; it can be made to
yield something, but not nothing. Its yield is something
beneficial, or something detrimental."
36. "What synchronism means to a clock, a convention means to
our organization; it enables those of us who are behind to
catch up and get in step with the others."
37. "Put First Things First! These four words cover an entire
philosophy which can be applied with profit by every
business leader, by every executive and by every employee."
38. "If joining IBM was commitment, not employment, and the
company engaged in something more than business, it had a
right to demand of its men unconditional loyalty, Watson
believed."
39. "Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker.
Expose your ideas to the danger of controversy. Speak your
mind and fear less the label of "crackpot" than the stigma
of conformity."
40. "A message from Paris to demonstrate the International
Radiotype at the National Business Show in NYC, October
16, 1933: We shall find ourselves in a better world than
mankind has ever known."
41. "The man who bases his actions on independent thought; who
reflects and considers before doing anything, and whose
judgments are arrived at through logic, is the man who
will go farthest today."
42. "Watson clearly spelled out his attitude about drinking,
prohibiting liquor at IBM functions, on IBM premises, for
IBM purposes: You can mix your drinking with pleasure, but
not with our business."
43. "Speech celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the
opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1933: It was
courage, faith, endurance and a dogged determination to
surmount all obstacles that built this bridge."
44. "Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee
who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. No, I
replied, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I
want somebody to hire his experience?"
45. "I think there's a world market for about five computers.
Quoted by Charles Hard Townes In Martin Moskovits (Ed.),
Science and Society, the John C. Polanyi Nobel Lareates
Lectures, Anansi Press, Concord, Ontario, 1995, p 8."
46. "Point out to the men working with you and around you that
we forgive thoughtful mistakes - that it is only the
thoughtless mistakes that cause trouble. Tell them first
to be sure they have thought about each proposition, then
to go ahead."
47. "When I speak about the future development of our
business, I want to include every other business in the
United States. In my judgment, every legitimate business
in our country today has a far better future ahead of it
than it has ever had before."
48. "Less than three weeks before his death, in one of
Watson's last public statements about his company, he
observed: It's this family spirit-combined with vision and
faith-that has been responsible, perhaps more than
anything else, for IBM's success."
49. "The business leaders of tomorrow will be the young men of
today-men like you who are preparing now for the great
future which lies ahead. You may view the future with
confidence, knowing that from the youth of today will
emerge the leaders of tomorrow."
50. "Watson himself said that when he was able to develop
loyalty in men, ability followed. "Joining a company is an
act that calls for absolute loyalty in big matters and
little ones," he declared. Criticism, if necessary at all,
was permitted only to superiors."
51. "Princeton Universtiy, October 13, 1928: There is no
saturation point in education if you follow sound
principles, and you must apply this motto to business. . .
You must acquire wisdom in addition to knowledge. Wisdom
is the power which enables you to use your knowledge to
advantage."
52. "Membership in the IBM family exacted certain standards of
conduct. The reputation of the company was in the hands of
everyone who worked for it, Watson insisted. Therefore,
his employees were warned against doing anything, even in
their private lives, which would be to the discredit of
the organization."
53. "It was necessary for us to discover greater powers of
destruction than our enemies. We did. But after every war
we have followed through with a new rise in our standard
of living by the application of war-taught knowledge for
the benefit of the world. It will be the same with the
atomic bomb principles."
55. "I believe in getting behind the individual and backing
him up, helping him to strengthen himself, making him feel
that there is someone endeavoring to help him, trying to
be an assistant to him, and bringing out the best there is
in him-in other words, teaching him to teach himself, and
in that way strengthen the entire organization."
56. "Within us all there are wells of thought and dynamos of
energy which are not suspected until emergencies arise.
Then oftentimes we find that it is comparatively simple to
double or treble our former capacities and to amaze
ourselves by the results achieved. Quotas, when set up for
us by others, are challenges which goad us on to surpass
ourselves. The outstanding leaders of every age are those
who set up their own quotas and constantly exceed them."
57. "All great questions of politics and economics come down
in the last analysis to the decisions and actions of
individual men and women. They are questions of human
relations, and we ought always to think about them in
terms of men and women-the individual human beings who are
involved in them. If we can get human relations on a
proper basis, the statistics, finance and all other
complicated technical aspects of these questions will be
easier to solve."
58. "A message sent to all members of the American Sales
Organization at the opening of the IBM Election Prize
Contest, September 1, 1932. In every walk of life, the
highest places and the greatest rewards go to those who
have the courage to attempt and ability to achieve big
things. That is true in science. It is true in government.
It is true in business. And it is true in this
organization. IBM leaders in the past have proved their
worth by performance, just as they will in this sales
campaign."
59. ""If you are loyal you are successful," ruminated the
company paper at one time. "All useful work is raised to
the plane of art when love for the task-loyalty-is fused
with the effort. Loyalty is the great lubricant of life.
It saves the wear and tear of making daily decisions as to
what is best to do. The man who is loyal to his work is
not wrung nor perplexed by doubts, he sticks to the ship,
and if the ship founders he goes down like a hero with
colors flying at the masthead and the band playing.""
60. "We are willing to spend any reasonable amount of money on
education in our organization, because we have a group of
men and women in our business who are constantly seeking
knowledge, knowing that is the way to make themselves more
valuable to the company and, automatically, more valuable
to themselves. We are working out a plan that is going to
take in everybody in the organization. We are going to
have post graduate schools for our men in the field, and
post graduate schools for our executives-and many of
them."
61. "It can't be done, engineers might tell him. It has to be
done, Watson would order, and often it could be. With this
approach Watson brought out the best in his men-in his
engineers, for example. He believed that engineering, like
salesmanship, depended not only on laws but on will. For
him the first principle of science, as well as the first
principle of the world of men, was enthusiasm. Build it,
he would order his engineers arbitrarily. And when they did,
the machine often seemed to be a triumph of Dale Carnegie
over Newton."
62. "A message regarding the annual convention of the
Advertising Federation of America in NYC, June 14-18,
1931. Advertising has illuminated the path of progress. .
. . In building up desire, advertising has spurred new
endeavors. It is their creative work, their dynamic
presentations of products, their ability to teach and
educate which have made each of us desire better things.
And in the fulfillment of our desires, we have reached for
and attained higher pinnacles in living standards and a
clearer conception of the values of life itself."
63. "What we do with our leisure time has considerable bearing
on what we accomplish during our working hours, and very
largely determines the degree of our success, Young men
who, like yourselves, devote a predetermined amount of
their leisure hours to study and to serious thinking, are
the men who are going to progress far and fast. The
business leaders of tomorrow will be the young men of
today-men like you who are preparing now for the great
future which lies ahead. You may view the future with
confidence, knowing that from the youth of today will
emerge the leaders of tomorrow."
64. "Princeton Universtiy, October 13, 1928: In order to be a
success in business, there is one thing you must do. You
cannot be successful without it. That is WORK. I have not
told you anything new. Everyone knows that you cannot be
successful in anything without work. Why does not everyone
work? Because some lack the one thing that makes men want
to work - ENTHUSIASM. That is something no one can give
you. You must acquire it yourself, and the only way that
you can become enthusiastic about anything is to have a
thorough KNOWLEDGE of it. You have never seen an
enthusiastic man who was lazy."
65. "A tribute, published October 22, 1931, to Thomas Alva
Edison upon his death: THE passing of Thomas Alva Edison
serves to direct our attention to the multitude of
benefactions he bestowed upon all humanity during his many
years of fruitful activity. It reminds us of the debt of
gratitude we owe him as members of the human race. By his
achievements, he laid the foundation for continued and
greater development. His persistent efforts and
indefatigable spirit multiplied many times the valuable
opportunities for man, especially the young man. To each
and every young man, Mr. Edison left a legacy of
opportunities."
66. "It is my personal opinion that we are going to recover
from this depression and establish on a sounder and better
basis, and we are going to reach greater heights of
prosperity than ever before in this country. Now, that is
just my personal opinion, but it is based on history,
because that is what has happened following every
depression. As we read the history of the various
depressions we find that the people all felt about them
just as we do about this one. One of the reasons we go
ahead rapidly after coming out of a depression is that
inventive genius and business talents have been put to a
test, and they have always devised new and better ways to
do things."
67. "The greatest asset of a man, a business or a nation is
faith. The men who built this country and those who made it
prosper during its darkest days were men whose faith in its
future was unshakable. Men of courage, they dared to go
forward despite all hazards; men of vision, they always
looked forward, never backward. Christianity, the greatest
institution humanity has ever known, was founded by twelve
men, limited in education, limited in resources, but with
an abundance of faith and divine leadership. The vision
essential to clear thinking; the common sense needed for
wise decisions; the courage of convictions based on facts
not fancies; and the constructive spirit of faith as
opposed to the destructive forces of doubt will preserve
our Christian ways of life."
68. "A tribute, published October 22, 1931, to Thomas Alva
Edison upon his death: More than any other man, Mr. Edison
lifted us out of the material surroundings of the Middle
Ages. For most part, his inventions were spectacular in
that they served to effect the emancipation of humanity and
at the same time made possible mass production, greater
factories, new and faster transportation methods, speedier
distribution of commodities and a general increase in the
happiness and higher standards of living for the peoples of
the world. His inventions have provided employment directly
for more than a million persons and many millions are
employed because of their indirect benefits. It has been
recorded that the investment value of all the undertakings
rooted in his inventions equals the value of all the gold
mined in the world since Columbus discovered America.
Thomas A. Edison, whom we revered for his simplicity and
his greatness, has passed on, but his name and his
achievements remain to be magnified in the light of their
untold benefits to future generations."
69. "There is very little difference between the general
manager, the sales manager, the factory manager, the
office manager, the factory man, the office man and the
salesman. We have different ideas and different work, but
when you come down to it, there is just one thing we have
to deal with throughout the whole organization - that is
the "MAN." Here is the way it lines up: The Manufacturer
general manager sales manager factory manager office
manager factory man office man salesMan This is a man
proposition pure and simple; that includes the ladies too,
by the way-all mankind. I think this one point is something
we should keep in mind at all times regardless of what our
occupations or duties are; we are just men-men standing
together, shoulder to shoulder, all working for one common
good; we have one common interest, and the good of each of
us as individuals affects the greater good of the company.
From a talk made at the opening session of The
International Time Recording Company Sales Convention, held
at Endicott, NY, January 25-30, 1915."
70. "Watson's answer to a question about competition in his
first company meeting, 1914, as the new president, of the
CTR (Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company), the company
that was to become IBM: ". . . the only way that we want
you men to handle the competition proposition is the only
way we can afford to allow you men to handle it, that is,
strictly on the merits of our goods. . . . You people when
you come down to competition-must not do anything that's in
restraint of trade, anything that will restrain the other
fellow from selling his goods, anything that could be
construed by anybody as unfair competition," he said,
stammering in his earnestness. "You know, gentlemen, it is
bad policy to do anything unfair with anybody, anywhere at
any time, isn't it, in business or outside of business? No
man ever won except in the one honest, fair and square way
in which you men are working." The audience burst into
applause, interrupting Watson again and again as he assured
them that he would uphold fairness no matter what the
competition did. . . . The spirit of the meeting quickened;
and Watson, for the first time, began to take command."
71. "DEAR Tom: A thought that has occurred and reoccurred to
me during my vacation is that some capable writer should do
a biography of your life. This thought came to me because
of my constant concern, publicly and privately, in the
combating of the trend toward excessive paternalism in
Government. As you know, I constantly preach individual
initiative and acceptance of individual responsibility if
we are in the long run to avert Statism. It seems to me
that an account of your life would be a story of
practicable achievement in the free enterprise system that
would be far more effective in support of my argument than
almost anything else could be. You have been known as one
of the liberal leaders of industry; your own personal
record as well as that of your company under your
leadership should bring home many lessons to the
participants in the industrial strife that now plagues the
nation. There are undoubtedly many writers and scholars who
would like to write a biography of you. It might even be
done best as a "collaboration" effort by two or more
writers. In any event, it is my thought that maybe you will
be sufficiently interested to talk it over with me when I
am in New York. Cordially, IKE"
In 2005 le Television Finlandese presentava un documento de quasi un hora del BBC, "Thomas J. Watson - patre del capitalismo"
