"We are extending this week the practical application of our policy that there should be no bosses in business—that every manager, assistant manager, department head, foreman, etc., of an organization must be instead a good assistant to and leader for somebody else. Accordingly, all the managers, assistant managers and heads of the various divisions of our sales department have gone out into the field where they will work as assistants to the men under their supervision. The best way to teach a man how to do something is to assist him in doing it and that is what our executives are doing."

Delivered by Tom Watson Sr. in the company newsletter September 29, 1932.

We are all assistants. Such words, without context, could easily be attributed to a spiritual leader. But they were not spiritual dogma; they were a guiding principle from the 20th century’s greatest capitalist, Thos. J. Watson Sr. He believed all men should assist each other. Some would consider this concept too sensitive, too touchy-feely or yes, too spiritual. Tom Watson Sr. considered it good business. These words empowered his corporate family to return to stockholders a compound annual rate of
return of over twenty percent for almost four decades encompassing nine recessions and the Great Depression. Through these times, he balanced his corporation on a tightrope stretched taut between the pillars of idealism and pragmatism.