Joining the “Greatest Company in the World,” 1974–1975
You had to see IBM through the eyes of its salesmen. Not since the 1930s had they experienced difficult years selling, with a mild exception during the recession of 1971–1972, and even then new products were introduced and more sales trainees brought into the company, while IBM continued to expand in Europe. Morale was high in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1974-the year I joined IBM-every sales manager (known as marketing manag-ers) had lived through the era of the System/360s in the 1960s when everyone made money; indeed IBM nearly doubled its revenue in a half-dozen years selling these large systems, which were largely comprised of 150 state-of-the-art products, crushing competitors and adding both new customers to its rosters and new data centers within existing accounts. A leading business historian, Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., called it one of the most successful products ever introduced.1 The majority of the DPD sales force in 1974 had lived through S/360 and the announcement and delivery of the S/370 systems, while other new products kept rapidly coming online. Opinion surveys done every year, and reviewed publicly in all branch offices, demonstrated that they felt they worked for the greatest company in the world. And it showed. They were well trained, experienced, confident, well paid, and well connected to the leadership structures of their local business and political organizations. Indeed, they were often accused of being cocky or arrogant, but what I observed coming into the company was a highly motivated and skilled sales force, a well-thought-out sales culture. Everyone seemed to be on a roll, or experiencing what sales executives in most companies preferred to call “momentum.” The hubris one noticed only at the annual national rallies honoring those who had made their business targets and thus were thanked and complimented by the company's senior executives in expansive language.