The Watson Dynasty by Richard S. Tedlow

Author:Richard S. Tedlow [Tedlow, Richard S.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-10-12T14:00:00+00:00

That was the end of him as far as I was concerned. All businessmen get asked a question like that sometime in their lives. They either answer it with courage and get fired or promoted, or they answer like a patsy. He’d just made a major mistake, because Dad wasn’t going to live very long and I was never going to want the vice president around me again.

This incident is an artifact of the family firm. Not the question itself. Difficult questions are asked in every company. This difficult question, however, was asked by the father, who you know felt one way, in front of the son, who you know felt another. The father ran the company now; the son would in the future. So in addition to the legitimate business issues raised there were all the emotional problems of the Watson family with which you had to deal.

Pugnacious young Tom pronounced this executive a “patsy.” Not quite a “real man.” He suggested an answer which would have gotten this executive off the hook. More likely, the suggested answer would have enraged both father and son. If the vice president had pointed out the problems in his department, thus agreeing with Junior, Dad would have been irate. He would have asked how what he viewed as one of the company’s great strengths had degenerated to such a low estate. Dad, said his son, was not going to live very long. But it does not take very long to say, “You’re fired.” In any case, this encounter took place in 1949. Dad did not retire until 1956.

Junior said that everyone is asked a question like this at some point. But of course no one ever asked him such a question. And it is relatively easy for a rich man to talk about the “courage” involved in facing the loss of your job.

This story, and much else of what you have just read, casts the Watsons in a negative light. Yet we should also be aware that there was another side to these men.

Both Watsons were capable of great and disinterested kindness. Many people—perhaps numbering in the thousands—benefited personally from their generosity over the decades. Not to know this is not to know them. And it is not to know something important about the company they ran.

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