Thomas J. Watson, Sr. (1874–1956) was an American business executive. As CEO of International Business Machines (IBM) 1914–55, Watson built one of the world’s most prominent corporations. As the world’s dominant manufacturer of business machines and computers, IBM led a revolution in the business world that ushered the information age.
Born in Campbell, New York, Watson joined the sales staff of the National Cash Register (NCR) Company in Dayton, Ohio, and he rose to the post of general sales manager of the company under the tutelage of its founder and president, John Henry Patterson.
In 1913, Watson joined a smaller competitor, Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR,) a maker of electrical punch-card computing systems and other products. CTR soon grew into IBM. Watson gave pep talks, enforced strict dress code, and posted the now-famous slogan “Think” in company offices. He also introduced IBM’s famed sales culture—having been a salesman himself, Watson insisted that IBM salespeople know how to install and service products as well as sell them.
By the time he retired in 1955, Watson had turned around IBM from debt to having total assets of $630 million and from fewer than 4,000 employees to 41,000. In the ensuing decades, under Watson’s son Thomas, Jr., IBM came to dominate the emerging computer market, and control 80% of the U.S. market. IBM also became a paradigm for corporate planning, research, and customer- and employee-loyalty.
Thomas and Marva Belden wrote the biography The Lengthening Shadow: The Life of Thomas J. Watson (1962,) and William Rodgers, Think: A Biography of the Watsons and IBM (1969.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
The toughest thing about the power of trust is that it’s very difficult to build and very easy to destroy. The essence of trust building is to emphasize the similarities between you and the customer.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Trust, Customers
Don’t make friends who are comfortable to be with. Make friends who will force you to lever yourself up.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Friends and Friendship
The Ediles among the Romans had their doors always standing open, that all who had petitions might have free access to them.—The door of heaven is always open for the prayers of God’s people.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Prayer
To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business, and your business in your heart.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Business, Success
The way to succeed is to double your error rate.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Wisdom is the power that enables us to use knowledge for the benefit of ourselves and others.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Wisdom
Would you like me to give you a formula for … success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure… You’re thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all… You can be discouraged by failure—or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember that’s where you’ll find success. On the far side.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Success, Success & Failure, Failure, Mistakes, Fail, Give, Perfectionism, Mistake
Really big people are, above everything else, courteous, considerate and generous—not just to some people in some circumstances—but to everyone all the time.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Manners, Generosity, Courtesy
Prayer is the soul’s breathing itself into the bosom of its heavenly Father.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Prayer
If you aren’t playing well, the game isn’t as much fun. When that happens I tell myself just to go out and play as I did when I was a kid.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Excellence
Whenever an individual or a business decides that success has been attained, progress stops.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Change
Hope is like the cork to the net, which keeps the soul from sinking in despair; and fear, like the lead to the net, which keeps it from floating in presumption.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Hope
Nothing so conclusively proves a man’s ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Leadership, Ability
If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Opposition
I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Computers
The prayer that is faithless is fruitless.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Faith, Prayer
The man who does not take pride in his own performance performs nothing in which to take pride.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Performance
The books of Nature and of Revelation equally elevate our conceptions and invite our piety; they are both written by the finger of the one eternal, incomprehensible God.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Books
To obey God in some things, and not in others, shows an unsound heart.—Childlike obedience moves toward even command of God, as the needle points where the loadstone draws.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Obedience
Wisdom is the power to put our time and our knowledge to the proper use.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Wisdom
A wicked man in prayer may lift up his hands, but he cannot lift up his face.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Prayer
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 triple our former capacities and to amaze ourselves by the results achieved.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
A man may read the figures on the dial, but he cannot tell how the day goes unless the sun is shining on it; so we may read the Bible over, but we cannot learn to purpose till the spirit of God shine upon it and into out hearts.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Bible
Once an organization loses its spirit of pioneering and rests on its early work, its progress stops.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Progress, Organization
A manager is an assistant to his men.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Management
The bare knowledge of God’s will is inefficacious, it doth not better the heart. Knowledge alone is like a winter sun, which hath no heat or influence; it doth not warm the affections, or purify the conscience. Judas was a great luminary, he knew God’s will, but he was a traitor.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Knowledge
Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of ‘crackpot’ than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Action, Mind, Risk, Courage
The great accomplishments of man have resulted from the transmission of ideas and enthusiasm.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Success, Enthusiasm, Success & Failure, Achievement, Ideas, Accomplishment
Cheerfulness is a friend to grace; it puts the heart in tune to praise God, and so honors religion by proclaiming to the world that we serve a good master.—Be serious, yet cheerful.—Rejoice in the Lord always.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Cheerfulness
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.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Topics: Mistake
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Robert Kiyosaki American Businessperson
Jack Welch American Businessperson
Ted Turner American Businessperson
Richard DeVos American Businessman, Philanthropist
W. Clement Stone American Self-help Guru
Clarence Francis American Business Executive
Andrew Grove Hungarian-born American Businessperson
Henry Ford American Businessperson
Allen Klein American Businessperson
Harvey Samuel Firestone American Industrialist