A Few Minutes with the Mayor – August 2014

How many of you remember one of the most common commands in the English language appearing in the business community following the end of World War 2? The command was short… one word… and it seemed to be posted wherever one worked, especially in the tabulating department… the precursor to the modern computer center. The word was THINK and it epitomized an entire generation of workers exhorted by I.B.M. to work not just harder but also more intelligently.

Tom Watson, the founder of I.B.M. coined the phrase while sales manager at N.C.R., took it with him to I.B.M. in 1914 where he made it part of the corporate culture. He even trademarked the word. It continues in use today, although in different forms such as ThinkPad or ThinkCentre.

I remember its effect on me in one of my first jobs out of the army… it made me nervous and I didn’t like it. What if I didn’t think clearly enough… or often enough… or at all? Working the machines with that big THINK sign staring down at me seemed almost Chaplinesque in nature. Chaplin’s 1936 film Modern Times illustrated the plight of modern man caught up in the machine age. Here I was, fifteen years later, commanded to think in an environment requiring very little thought. Chaplin’s task was to work an assembly line with utmost efficiency… mine was to process tabulating cards rapidly and without error. I remember thinking that thinking would only slow me down. If that were true, then it would be dangerous to think since the clock was also my enemy. My work was measured in physical output… not mental activity. Thinking didn’t seem practical. If I must think, then it seemed far better to think of the girl next door. This actually worked for awhile until I found out she was thinking of someone else.

Shall we consider it thusly: The playwright, George Bernard Shaw once boasted, “Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.”   There now, perhaps thinking is worth a try, although thinking requires effort.

Martin Luther King once said, “Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.” Putting thinking into practice, this truth became self-evident… especially in the world of politics. Politicians would love to see you stop thinking independently. Just look at the world through their side of the looking glass. The opposition would have you look through the other side. There’s a better way… ignore them both and build your own looking glass. Ignore the isms. It’s not easy. They will quote science, religion, history, and even philosophy; in the end you will only know the truth if you think for yourself. The words of Thomas Paine ring true even today, “When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.”

Maybe I’ll put Tom Watson’s old sign – THINK– back up on my office wall.