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The Maverick and His Machine
At age 40, Watson was thrown a curve ball that, like that first sentence says, nearly ruined him. In fact, it sent him so low that this shaped his character more than anything that had happened to him earlier in his lifetime. It sent him to the lower depths and resulted in him being given the reigns of an equally down-in-the dumps loser business just to get rid of him. He was banished to a corporate Siberia. He was considered a loser, and given a loser's position in a loser's business.
It's at this point that he reshaped and remade that company into what is today known as IBM. The blue suits and white shirts that were the uniform of IBM men became so because he wore one every day. There was no written rule that employees had to wear them; they did it because he did it. That says something: he led by example and his employees admired him.
Just as an aside, it seems that Watson's big thing was that things didn't happen (or went wrong) because people didn't think hard enough. To encourage employees to think he had big "THINK" signs put all over the company. This evolved into "Think" buttons, and employees were even allowed and encouraged to kick back and think. Eventually, small notepads were emblazoned with "Think" and they were called "Thinkpads." Hence, the name of the laptop.
THINK, by the way, is the reason that the company created so many technological innovations.
Now, just because Watson started IBM and largely shaped it into one of the most successful companies in the world doesn't mean he was a saint. Some of the most interesting parts of the book have to do with his home life and how he treated his wife and kids. It seems that he was somewhat of a manipulator who knew how to shape people by breaking them and remaking them.
One story about his son (who would later become CEO of the company) shows Watson's mean streak. It seems that, early in the younger Watson's career, after dinner together at home, the elder asked him what his impression was of one of his executives.
The younger Watson dutifully answered, seeking to impress his father with his skill at observing people. The elder paused and then berated the young man for daring to form an opinion about a seasoned executive who had years of experience behind him. Who did the young man think he was to judge someone who had been in the business since before he was born?
While this isn't the stuff of Ward Cleaver, Watson was, all the same, a courageous and enterprising individual who took risks and (most of the time) succeeded. Especially engrossing is the episode during the depression when IBM was in danger of bankruptcy and shutting its doors. Watson, contrary to what most intelligent people would do, gave a rousing talk to his top executives, telling them that instead of cutting back on manufacturing and personnel, they should increase both.
Luckily (for Watson), a few months later, Pearl Harbor happened and, with the sharp increase in troops, materials and logistics, the U.S. government needed "calculating machines" and needed them fast. While major competitors like NCR and Burroughs had to ramp up production to meet demand, IBM, with its ready stockpile of machines won the contract and delivered, saving them from possible bankruptcy.
There is a lot more I could say about the book but because I don't want to spoil anything, I won't go into it here. However, if you're a Big Blue fan (and I am), you might want to follow up this read with Lou Gerstner, Jr.'s book, Who Says Elephants Can't Dance. It's a great read about how, for the second time in its history, the company was saved from becoming history.
You can purchase The Maverick and His Machine: Thomas Watson, Sr. and the Making of IBM from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
also forget to close the italics tag?
The grandfather of 'business with a baseball bat' was NCR. IBM was the best practitioner of this until Microsoft took over the crown in the 1990's.
IIRC Thomas Watson learnt his art at NCR, where the ability to smash a rival's machines was one of the job requirements for an ambitious cash register salesman. These days, I'd guess that translates into being able to produce VR TCO studies proving that Windows is cheaper.
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I find it very funny that slashdotters are so in love with the company that only 20 years ago was the evil empire. If in 10 years Microsoft does a turn around and starts supporting Linux will we all forget the evils of the past? But then again I am sure many slashdotters are smokers and there is no more evil empire then Big Tobacco.
Yes, praise be to $DEITY for that event.
True story.
There is a lot more I could say about the book but because I don't want to spoil anything
IBM stands for International Business Machines. Ok, I just gave away the ending. sorry.
Why would a geek care? Because IBM, its technological breakthroughs and Watson are very much the foundation of commercial technology as we know it today.
A true geek doesn't necessarily care much about IBM. IBM is a lot more relevant to suits. In fact, IBM redefines the concept of "corporate culture" and "standardized outfit". They also embody the culture of centralized computing (or at least used to) and the company used to be seen as a "benevolent dictator", with its policy of renting computers instead of selling them.
All these things are quite opposite to the world of geeks. Of course, curious and open-minded geeks read about everything, and therefore should read this book as well.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
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Because heaven knows one could never have an interesting book about a "dead white man".
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
... you might want to read Father Son and Company by Tom Watson Jr., who took over IBM after his father. Great book, managers could learn a thing or fifteen from Father and Son alike.
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
Luckily (for Watson), a few months later, Pearl Harbor happened and, with the sharp increase in troops, materials and logistics, the U.S. government needed "calculating machines" and needed them fast.
.30 cal M1 Carbines during WW2... the ultimate in international business machines (and relations).
Don't forget that IBM also manufactured
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Then there was the round-the-world tech support, which is so reminisent of today's outsource-to-India trend.
I like what I read about IBM these days, but haven't been in a position to buy from them lately, so don't have much current knowlege.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
For another take on the origins of IBM, read IBM And The Holocaust by Edwin Black. While I think it's true that any company could have been in IBM's place in WWII, I don't think we should ignore the fact that IBM played both sides.
"Thomas John Watson began his life at age 40"
In a log cabin that he built with his own hands?
"Derp de derp."
"Luckily (for Watson), a few months later, Pearl Harbor happened ..."
Wrong! Long before that, FDR's New Deal and the new Social Security Administration were the source of IBM's turnaround during the depression.
... now back to the bit mines.
Think!
and
We forgive thoughtful mistakes.
They used to chant these at assemblies....
Need, sure. Hell, worldwide we only needed 0.
The world worked just fine for thousands of years without 'em.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
OK, so I admit that absolutely nothing about this book drew my attention EXCEPT the name of the author, Kevin Maney. Any devotee of his columns in USA Today knows his ability to tell a story. Yes, I knew I should be intrested in the life of Tom Watson -- he was, after all, one of the first "celebrity CEOs," although the term hadn't been invented. But I never thought I would be so fascinated by a man and his story.
This is a must read for anyone who wants to get a sense of what real leadership is all about. Watson was leading before there were books on leadership and studies on communictation. He was managing corporate culture before there were words for it. He saw his company -- and his employees -- through transitions that go well beyond mainframe vs. PC. When his technologies were rendered obsolete, he simply invented new ones.
Anyone with aspirations to lead should read this book. It's so action-packed that you may forget it's a true story. But it is. And I can't wait to see the movie.
When this comes out on audio book if somebody could go ahead and rip it for me then blog an announcement someplace so I can go pull it down onto my iPod, then I'll care. I tried reading a dead tree while driving to work one morning, damn near killed myself. Spilled my coffee in my lap and everything, had to tell my wife I'd call her back.
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My dad would love this book. Which is why I'll never read it.
--b
I think the reviewer got his facts a bit screwed up. The thing that saved IBM, after the depression started and it continued manufacturing, was the start of the Social Security System (I think in 1933; 1941 would have been a long time to wait...).
The WW II connection is that IBM turned over its manufacturing plants to the government to make war materiel at a 1% profit. Carbines, gun sights, small cannons, other things, were all made in IBM's plants in Poughkeepsie, Endicott, and elsehwere.
I live in Dayton. I never thought of it as a particularly difficult place to live. Perhaps if I move, I can take over the world and you can all bow down and worship me.
But don't rush out to buy my septer and throne just yet... I'm kinda stuck with having a negative equity mortgage, so the escape velocity to overcome the sucking power of Dayton is a little out of my reach at the moment. ;-)
It is unfortunate that Mr. Watson's views, perspectives, and ideals will be lost forever if the company continues on its current path of behavior. The company is not operated as it once was during the thriving 50's, 60's and 70's. Some portions of the company *are* innovative and forward looking, but much of the company is reigned by dinosaurs that prefer politics to innovation and change. Working here sounds like a wonderful opportunity, but it is not an opportunity, it is merely a job. We are pushing for new innovation, for example, for help systems on the web to be based on the Eclipse platform and XML. We are told by the dinosaurs that HTML 4.0 is good enough, and that we don't really understand that XML stuff anyways.
They wonder why the attrition rate is so high among the younger crowd.
My two cents: look for a younger company with younger management with open minds.
StyleChief
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! -M. Python
While a "true geek" may not care about the history of IBM management, there are many interesting things that have been produced by IBM's scientists and engineers. Many of the neat features in today's microprocessors can be seen in IBM 360/370 series mainframes from the 1960s and 1970s. Today's microprocessors have yet to catch up with the reliability, availability and maintenance features of IBM's large systems. Anyone who is interested in computer architecture can learn a lot from studying the technical history of IBM.
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If Microsoft did a turnaround and started supporting Linux, becoming part of the solution rather than the 800 pound gorilla of a problem then you're damned right I'd do business with them. You're a fool if you refuse to do business with a company because of what it did 20 years ago, provided that company has changed.
Especially engrossing is the episode during the depression when IBM was in danger of bankruptcy and shutting its doors. Watson, contrary to what most intelligent people would do, gave a rousing talk to his top executives, telling them that instead of cutting back on manufacturing and personnel, they should increase both.
Interesting. Even more interesting is this quote:
"No matter what the provocation, I never fire a man who is honestly trying to deliver a job. Few workers who become established at the Disney Studio ever leave voluntarily or otherwise, and many have been on the payroll all their working lives."
Guess who? Walt Disney.
These men built two of the most enduring companies in history, and neither of them endorsed mass layoffs. Coincidence? Guess not.
Will current middle management learn from this? Probably not. They're too "sophisticated" for that.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Watson was a salesman, and was at one point NCR's top salesman, working for Patterson, the head of National Cash Register. The whole Patterson/NCR story is worth understanding. NCR's entire top management was convicted of criminal antitrust violations. Their tactics make Microsoft look like small timers. NCR built defective duplicates of competing cash registers and sold them to make the competition look bad. Their sales reps were instructed on how to sabotage competing cash registers.
It doesn't take a long memory to recall the days when Apple went head-to-head with IBM for the desktop marketplace.
Just 20 years after the Superbowl ad where Big Blue was smashed by the Apple girl, the top-of-the-line PowerMac G5 sports an IBM-manufactured 64-bit processor.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
The WW II connection is that IBM turned over its manufacturing plants to the government to make war materiel at a 1% profit. Carbines, gun sights, small cannons, other things, were all made in IBM's plants in Poughkeepsie, Endicott, and elsehwere.
Not just IBM, either. You'll find M1s made by fGM and Rockola, as well.
Mechanical computers (which is what much of the mechanism of a gun, distributor, carburator, or jukebox of the era actually is), and the products that make them, are also very flexible - even if the actual products aren't easily field-reprogrammable.
GM, for instance, made M1s at Saginaw Steering Gear. (Seems the machine for drilling a hole down the center of the steering shaft for the horn wire is REALLY good at making rifle barrels. B-) )
The same tools that beat swords into plowshares can beat plowshares into swords.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
This is SCO we're talking about - does anyone here really expect them to be around in 20 years?
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
The book the original poster refers to is painstakingly researched and basically correct. Not only did IBM supply machines to the Nazis, profit from it, and do everything they could to keep the German subsidiary (and its profits) under control, but Watson himself was quite an admirer of Hitler and praised him endlessly during the thirties. Not that he was unique in this regard among American businessman, but it is something that must be considered when the man is being venerated as some kind of computing icon.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
In desperation, the board brought in Lou G., who had no previous experience in IT, to take the helm. Lou remade the company, in particular, making it more customer focused. Employees were so scared of the company dying, that they pretty much went along with his plans. The IBM of today really is a transformed company from the IBM prior to Lou's remake.
And that is a scary world to live in!
It's silly to hold a mutable group of persons responsible for the sins of past members of this group.
If tomorrow, MS board kicks Ballmer into the used car salesman career for which he's born, and they tie Bill Gates on a chair in his 3-acre rec room, and they reform MS corporate culture, and they stop being bastards, then MS will probably become a decent corporation. Provided they get rid of the people who ooze the current MS culture, of course.
However, such a strategy might have drawback. For example, people will be so disoriented they'll probably swamp MS' tech support for call about how to make a donation because they'll think it has been bought by the Salvation Army.
There is no danger for now, though. If anything, MS would buy the Salvation Army, distribute antifreeze-laced booze to all the hobos and homeless, and auction their body parts.
Meanwhile, the gouvenment would investigate about their unfair practices of volume-purchasing antifreeze.
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IBM didn't start with Thomas Watson. IBM was originally the Computing-Tabulating-Recording (CTR) Company, founded by Charles Flint in 1911. CTR was made up of three acquisitions:
The latter is most important; it was founded and owned by Herman Hollerith, who invented the electric tabulating machine made famous by the 1890 U.S. Census. Thomas J. Watson wasn't hired as CTR's president until 1915, and the name change did not come until 1924.
Book suggestion: Austrian, Geoffrey D. Herman Hollerith: Forgotten Giant of Information Processing.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.
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