IBM founder Thomas Watson became famous, in part, because of a
slogan he’d picked up as a young sales manager for National Cash
Register Company. He made it the defining motif for Big Blue
from the 1920′s to the present. “Think” signs were plastered all
over IBM so that every employee, from the janitor to the senior
vice president, would capture the vision that strategic thinking
would enable the company to grow and flourish. He made the
compelling case that “I didn’t think” was one of the main
reasons why companies lost millions of dollars. I understand
that some IBM employees—engineers and so forth—would carve out
significant blocks of time every day simply to think. One reason
why things tend to overwhelm us is that we may have nurtured the
bad habit of not thinking a thing through and then finding a
solution by thoroughly understanding it. We tend to be impatient
and want everything now, especially resolutions to problems that
niggle and irritate. This applies to any area of life, not
simply mechanical ma