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Action(s)
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Solve it. Solve it quickly, solve it right or wrong. If you solve it wrong, it will come back and slap you in the face, and then you can solve it right. Lying dead in the water and doing nothing is a comfortable alternative because it is without risk, but it is an absolutely fatal way to manage a business.
-Thomas J. Watson
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Business
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You have to have your heart in the business and the business in your heart.
-Thomas J. Watson
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You don't hear things that are bad about your company unless you ask. It is easy to hear good tidings, but you have to scratch to get the bad news.
-Thomas J. Watson
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Computers
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I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
-Thomas J. Watson
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Conformity & Nonconformity
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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
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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
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Excellence
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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
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If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work.
-Thomas J. Watson
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Friends
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Don't make friends who are comfortable to be with. Make friends who will force you to lever yourself up.
-Thomas J. Watson
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Life
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Life itself is a matter of salesmanship.
-Thomas J. Watson, Men
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Management
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A manager is an assistant to his men.
-Thomas J. Watson
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Manners
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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
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Progress
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Once an organization loses its spirit of pioneering and rests on its early work, its progress stops.
-Thomas J. Watson
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Risk
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Every time we've moved ahead in IBM, it was because someone was willing to take a chance, put his head on the block, and try something new.
-Thomas J. Watson
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Snow
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Oh! the snow, the beautiful snow,
Filling the sky and earth below,
Over the housetops, over the street,
Over the heads of the people you meet.
Dancing,
Flirting,
Skimming along.
-Thomas J. Watson
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Success & Failure
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The way to succeed is to double your error rate.
-Thomas J. Watson
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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
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The great accomplishments of man have resulted from the transmission of ideas and enthusiasm.
-Thomas J. Watson
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Thought
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THINK. Think about your appearance, associations, actions, ambitions, accomplishment.
-Thomas J. Watson
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All the problems of the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to think. The trouble is that men very often resort to all sorts of devices in order not to think, because thinking is such hard work.
(founder of IBM)
-Thomas J. Watson
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Trust
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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
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Wisdom
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Wisdom is the power to put our time and our knowledge to the proper use.
-Thomas J. Watson
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Books by and about Thomas J. Watson