IBM

9010 IBM7 - HUMAN RELATIONS STRATEGY

It was with its Personnel Department that, uniquely amongst Western companies at the time, IBM's real strengths - before the watershed of the 1980s - were apparent. For it was this department that was the guardian of IBM's critical first belief, "Respect for the Individual".

The basic building block of the philosophy was the relationship between manager and individual; but this was strengthened, and controlled, by the formal institution of the Appraisal and Counselling (A & C) interview. This is a concept which has now been taken up by other organisations - even my own Open University has adopted it - though usually in a less powerful application (with less 'teeth' at one extreme and fewer guarantees of fairness at the other).

Status, a problem bedevilling relations in many other companies, was minimised in IBM by being linked to a (confidential) abstract level, which was not necessarily directly linked to management position. On the other hand, it didn't adopt the deliberately informal approach which the later Silicon Valley start-ups - including Microsoft - used to circumvent the problems of status. Although Bill Gates adopted some of the superficial elements of the IBM cultural environment - Microsoft's buildings, in which everyone has the same size office, are for example modeled on those of IBM - he avoided IBM's formal systems and deliberately encouraged a (computer geek?) campus atmosphere. It was, perhaps, an extension of his own approach to life, but it found favor for the software developers he was recruiting straight out of college; though, underneath the surface, his rule seems to be more autocratic rather than collegial.

One of the key policies, if not even the foundation for IBM's success at the time (and is often claimed also for the Japanese corporations), was that of full employment. The corollary, as IBM changed rapidly, was that individuals had to regularly retrain and change their careers, and Personnel Department was (at least nominally) also the guardian of their careers (and had to ensure that they fulfilled their potential). Equal opportunity and single status were also basic rights; though IBM (in common with the Japanese corporations) even then had large numbers of temporary and contract personnel, who were certainly treated as (unseen) second class citizens. Microsoft has, to an extent, followed these principles but, luckily for it, it has never had to face up to a need for redundancies.

Personnel Priorities…at a time when the intrinsic knowledge held by individual employees is coming to represent a major asset of an organization, the personnel function - as guardian of that asset - must be given the seniority it now deserves. After a brief burst of interest in HRS, during the 1990s, personnel is still normally seen as just another supporting department.

This chapter, therefore, explores what was one of IBM's greatest strengths, as well as that of its Japanese followers; its handling of people. Its Personnel Department was the guardian of the principles that were held near sacred and were, I believe, ultimately responsible for much of its success. That all of this has to be in the past tense indicates just how far-reaching were the changes which its management introduced in the later 1980s. It also suggests at least one of the reasons why IBM of later years was so unsuccessful - paradoxically, as many other organisations were taking on board, at least in theory, many of its lessons - under the guise of 'Human Relations Strategy'. Because of its importance in this relatively new approach to people management, but also because many of the lessons have still to be included in this, I will concentrate in this chapter on the positive - and hence inevitably historical - aspects. I will restrict myself to a short section at the end (and some longer historical observations in the chapter about IBM's last - and least successful - leaders) which will reinforce the messages by showing what happens when you ignore them!

The importance of this is, I believe, best illustrated by a quote from Akio Morita's autobiography ('Made in Japan' - William Collins, 1987). As the head of Sony, one of Japan's most successful corporations, he should have some insight into the reasons for their success. He says:

"There is no secret ingredient or hidden formula responsible for the success of the best Japanese companies. No theory or plan or government policy will make a business a success; that can only be done by people. The most important mission for a Japanese manager is to develop a healthy relationship with his employees, to create a family like feeling within the corporation, a feeling that employees and managers share the same fate. Those companies that are most successful in Japan are those that have managed to create a shared sense of fate among all employees.....".

Kenichi Ohmae supports this when he says[1] "When the Japanese say that organization is people, they really mean it. They know that a great many contemporary corporate problems fall outside the scope of the organization or planning in the paperwork senses. Only active and alert organization members, working as an integrated team, can properly address and resolve them."

The same point was made, even more succinctly, to me personally by Junji Numada, the Managing Director of Toyota Motor Corporation, when I asked him what made that company so successful: "Success comes from your relationship with your employees."

HRS…"Success comes from your relationship with your employees." During the early 1990s, this Japanese lesson was  incorporated in what has come to be known in the West as the Human Resources Strategy (HRS) approach. Unfortunately, as the increasingly aggressive policies (such as Competitive Advantage and Re-engineering) emerged - driven in part by the recessions but also by the Thatcherite/Reaganist political emphasis on the supremacy of the market, HRS receded into the background again! With the hardening of US attitudes in general since the World Trade Center attack, it is unlikely that the US - at least - will be softening its approach to personnel policies.

Thus, where we see elsewhere that IBM was to a large extent a model for the Japanese (especially in terms of their human relations strategies), its Personnel Department occupied, at least at the time (in the 1970s) we are talking about, a far stronger, and more central, role in senior management circles than in other Western companies. This was, though, directly comparable once more with Japan where the senior director is in charge of the personnel function; but it is scarcely even mentioned in the many reports about Microsoft.

These principles were largely the legacy of the Watsons, but they were just as zealously guarded by the first of their bureaucratic successors. For example they are clearly identified on the first page of Buck Rodgers' book, once more as the key to IBM's success.

Respect for the Individual

The first, and most important, of IBM's three basic beliefs was "Respect for the Individual". The IBM UK Annual Review 1984, for example, said that this "more than anything else accounts for our continuing success". This philosophy was a direct descendent of Tom Watson Jr's long campaign for the rights of the individual within IBM.

An IBM employee booklet ("Employment with IBM"), that described its personnel principles, proudly bore on its cover a 1962 quote from Tom Watson Jr "I believe the real difference between success and failure in a corporation can very often be traced to the question of how well the organisation brings out the great energies and talents of its people. I believe that if an organisation is to meet the challenges of a changing world it must be prepared to change everything about itself except its basic beliefs". In most companies this would be public relations hype. In IBM it was at the root of its success.

In defining "Respect for the Individual" IBM in the same booklet underlined some common factors; "drawing out the best of an individual's energies, talents, skills, creativity and adaptability; rewarding individuals for their achievements and contributions; creating opportunities for individuals to develop; ensuring that the individual's voice can be heard; protecting the rights and dignity of the individual; and providing a basic sense of security for the individual". These were objectives that might seem unduly idealistic to many managers. Yet at the core of each is not mere altruism but sound business logic. The list does not just encompass those terms that will reward the employees with a better job and greater fulfilment, but it also encompasses precisely those factors which result in a more productive workforce; and this productivity leverage was demonstrated by IBM's enviable profit record at the time.

Such public beliefs were predicted, by "Theory Z", to be the first step in achieving the trust necessary for the type of success experienced by IBM; and they are integral to the Human Resources Strategy Approach. It is common for the senior executives of Japanese corporations to publish books detailing their philosophies. IBM was almost unique amongst Western companies in publishing its beliefs so widely (and indeed, quite early in his leadership of IBM, Tom Watson Jr did produce a slim volume, "A Business and its Beliefs", which is fascinating reading). Bill Gates has published several books, with a commendable focus on the future (albeit a rather pedestrian view of it!), but in them he has not made a similar stand of any such philosophies.

Publish and be Loved…it is not sufficient to have a good personnel policy, even if it is as good as IBM's was and even if it meets all that a Human Resource Strategy (HRS) approach demands. You must tell your employees about it, over and over again, and involve them; in the shared destiny of the organization. Most CEOs are supposed to be too involved in strategic decision-making to write books or even talk to their staff.

First Line Management…as the first line troops implementing these policies IBM relied on its managers. In particular, on this basis it justified the relatively high ratio, around nine, of employees per manager; though there was some confusion, with Buck Rodgers for example quoting various levels between one to eight and one to twelve!

This was comparable, once more, with the Japanese corporations. Ezra Vogel, in his book "Japan as Number One " (Harvard University Press, 1979), reported that the entire business and social structure of Japanese companies is built around the Kacho. This is the section head, typically running an 8 ‑ 10 person group; "The essential building block of the organisation is the section..... The lowly section, within its sphere, does not await executive orders but takes the initiatives.... For this system to work effectively, leading section personnel need to know and identify with company purposes to a higher degree than persons in an American firm". This is also one of the elements (along with widespread use of "Task Forces" of a similar size) of the process described as "chunking" by Peters and Waterman, and stressed by them as a major contributor to effective management at the lower levels.

Sell it to the Managers…it is also not sufficient to persuade the 'workers' of your intentions, you must also ensure that your managers understand them, and implement them. You must ensure that they carry out personnel policies exactly as you intend. This will not be easy, where many managers are used to following bad practices; but all managers must conform to the new practices. If even one or two are allowed to ignore them then the whole system will fall into disrepute! In reality, many of the organizations which do publish their high ideals let their managers subvert them.

Appraisal and Counseling

The key formal element in this relationship was the A & C (Appraisal and Counseling interview). At least once a year a manager had to conduct a formal A & C with every one of his or her subordinates. Part of this meeting was concerned with agreeing the objectives that the employee would meet (and would be judged by) over the next year. These had to be clearly spelled out and prioritised. IBM expected all its employees to undertake management by objectives (MBO); where, once the MBO fad had passed, other organisations happily forgot about this! As a side issue (for the main drive of the A & C was to manage the individual's productivity) the interview also reviewed the employee's future career path and educational needs over the next year. It should be noted, however, that although these were side issues no manager was allowed to ignore them, since the welfare of their subordinates was their prime concern. The sting was in the tail, or rather the beginning of the interview, for a review of the employee's performance against the objectives set at the previous A & C was the major element of the interview. This was the reason why managers typically set aside half a day for each A & C (and were, probably for the only time, strictly not to be interrupted during this meeting; the A & C was meant to very clearly be a sacrosanct, indeed almost sacred, rite of IBM).

A&Cs - Appraisal and Counseling…these sessions are the most important in building relations between management and employees. They bring to the surface the key issues, which otherwise produce hidden tensions. They set clear objectives for employees, explain how they are to be measured against these, and assign the resources - especially training - needed to achieve these. Such counseling interviews are now widely used, but are less widely integrated into genuine career path planning.

 

The resulting rating of performance, against objectives, was graded from 1 down to 5. It was unusual for an employee to be consistently rated a 1 performer (perhaps only 10% achieved this level). The system strongly suggested that such an employee should be considered for immediate promotion, and managers were loathe to make such a commitment as part of the A & C process. Most employees, therefore, fell into the range of 2 and 3 performers. Although a 3 performance should theoretically have been the average (but of course the average for IBM which was very much higher than for most other companies), and as such applicable to most IBM'ers, many managers allowed rather more leeway than the rules would suggest; and in practice the split in numbers nearly equally between 2 and 3 performers.

Those very few employees who were seen to fail in their job were awarded a 5 performance, which was deemed "unsatisfactory". There was an elaborate process, requiring the manager to set very clear short term objectives, and to have at least two further A & C's (with Personnel Department involvement) before the employee was finally dismissed (or "separated" in IBM jargon; where the day you leave IBM was described by one alumni as "the loneliest day of your life", the parallel with marriage and divorce was apposite). The complexity and difficulty of this process, combined with the rigorous selection procedures (and the many different jobs available to match individual's talents), ensured that remarkably few employees were actually dismissed. More likely the employee was moved to a suitable "Siberia" or penalty box; though senior management regularly issued instructions pleading that the nettle be grasped (where the issue was often evaded by a manager transferring the problem to someone else). Indeed, if there was a major failure in this otherwise admirable system, it was that IBM's failures were not weeded out - simply because managers' nerves failed them (rather than any flaw inherent in the theory). To help his reduction in staffing levels, and to give more teeth to the process, Gerstner later reduced the number of grades to just three; a much tougher approach, especially where a low three grade meant than an employee was automatically put on a six month probation!

A&C Teeth…though they may - even in their least direct application -  help employees to a better understanding of their role, to be of most value A&Cs should produce something tangible. In the case of IBM they directly fed into the remuneration system; the employees salary depended on the outcome. This focused everyone's attention on the process - and ensured that it worked. Other organisations, including my own university, have not had the courage to grasp this part!

Employee Agreement…there were two main reasons why A & C's often took an inordinately long time. The first was that the manager was required to obtain the employee's agreement (in the form of his or her signature on the elaborate document that detailed the matters discussed) to both the objectives for the next year and to the performance level recorded for the past year. Both, it will be apparent, were likely to be contentious. The second reason was that the employee was well aware that their next salary increase would  be directly linked to their A & C performance rating. The negotiation, where most IBM'ers are natural negotiators, might thus be a long drawn out process; and put as much pressure on the manager as on the subordinate.

A&C Agreement…the final, and in many ways the most important, test of the A&C process is that the employee also has to agree with what is put in the report - and with the rating he or she is being given. The employees voluntary signature to the documents is the key. If they are forced to sign, where many managers can easily persuade vulnerable employees to do exactly that, then the process is once more invalidated. It is the shared approach which is central to success. The corollary is that there must be a right of appeal, to higher management, if no agreement can be reached. This aspect is rarely deployed in organizations, since it requires a degree of trust on the part of employees beyond that normally encountered!

Most non‑IBM'ers would probably view the A & C as a process to be feared, because it so very clearly was an evaluation, and what is more one that was formally documented. It may be seen to be redolent of "Big Brother" constantly watching the workers. The reality is that in all organisations management are constantly evaluating their subordinates; this is a basic, and essential, element of their job. Usually, though, this is a strictly informal, and largely capricious, process; based on "gut‑feel" and favouritism as much as on performance. In IBM this process was recognised, and codified. As a result the individual was, as far as was humanly possible, guaranteed a fair evaluation. No manager could give a grossly unfair assessment; since - if challenged - they had to obtain agreement from two other individuals, their own manager and the subordinate in question. Hence the A & C was a key discipline on management, and was the kingpin of the formal structure that tied the majority of IBM employees into the formal management and control structures. It is not clear how this has since been affected by Gerstner's 'politicization' of the process.

I have dwelled upon the A & C process at some length, as I will on some of the other personnel processes, because (although it looks bureaucratic) it was at the core of the personal relationship between manager and managed. The employee knew exactly where he stood. He expected, and was guaranteed to get, fair treatment. He accordingly had confidence, and that much more trust, in IBM.

Salary Levels

The IBM'ers salary was governed by a rather complex set of calculations. The main bases were the performance rating, the "level" and the previous salary. The "level" was a source of much mystery in IBM. In theory employees were not informed of their "level"; it was supposed to be a technicality normally linked to the position and not the person. In reality, of course, it was of very direct relevance and there must have been very few IBM'ers who were not acutely aware of their own level; and of the levels of those around them. To complicate matters, for outsiders, the level actually took the form of a two digit number, the first digit of which indicated the broad type of job (and in particular the type of remuneration) Thus sales personnel (on quota; IBM's term for the commission system) were all in the 70's, where their comrades in staff (not on commission) were in the 50's; but as always IBM complicated matters by putting senior management in the 60's!

The all important second digit was a measure of the "status" regardless of job type. Taking the example of one area (that of Marketing Staff), the "professional" level (that is those who had moved on from the lowlier administrative levels) started at 54 and rose to 56. The bottom level of "professional" management usually started at 57. In theory  "professionals" could reach level 57 and even aspire to level 58 without becoming managers. IBM liked to believe that it rewarded each individual in full for his or her contribution, and management (even senior management) was just one skill amongst many. In reality, even as the 1980s began IBM was taking a tougher line. There were indeed numbers of level 57 professionals around, but most of them dated from the boom times of the 1970's; there were very few created in the 1980's.

The typical Marketing Manager (IBM's title for a first level sales manager), running a team of 5 to 10 salesmen might have expected to be at least on a 57 level (and probably would be on a 58 level) The Branch Manager, reckoned to be the plum job in IBM, should have merited at least a 59 level.

This already complex picture was complicated even further by the fact that all the salary levels overlapped. Thus a high performing 55 level professional, with a number of years behind him, might have earned more than a 57 level manager.

The reason for describing the "level" system at some length is that it made a major contribution to the flexibility of the workforce, and to IBM's consequent ability to manage change. There was indeed a practical logic to the complexity; it was not simply bureaucracy gone mad. It meant that levels could be compared across quite different areas of activity (and across countries). Thus the 76 level sales professional could, allowing for the commission element, be directly compared with his 56 level opposite number in staff. Employees were, accordingly, willing to change to new jobs because the future was predictable. In part this was because, at that time, they knew that IBM's personnel policies, and in particular that of "full employment", would protect them. Even so the new job would be an unknown quantity; change in IBM ran at such a pace that there was no possibility of having "standard" jobs which were immediately understandable to employees. Each job was largely unique.

The one known quantity, however, was the "level". Despite the fact that "levels" were not officially discussed, the first question an employee asked of a prospective new manager was "what is the level?"  The employee thus had a guarantee that at least the salary and status were what he required; and in IBM the exact nature of any job was very much a function of what the individual made of it. As a lubricant of change, therefore, the universal application of exactly comparable "levels" should not be underestimated.

At the same time, this determination of status by (secret; at least in theory) "level" fatally undermined the normal "hen‑pecking" order. Even though most staff had a good idea of the "levels" of those other IBM'ers they dealt with, there was always an element of uncertainty. This made all status relationships somewhat equivocal, even those between managers and non‑managers (for the "professionals" might actually have had a higher status than the managers; which simply would not happen in most other companies). The end result was that most relationships (even manager to non‑manager) were on a strictly equal to equal, peer to peer, basis. IBM was thus, by default, a truly egalitarian company; and this once more oiled the wheels of its very unconventional, ever changing, structures.

The conferring of "status" by these "levels" (even if officially they did not exist) had another benefit. It removed a substantial amount of the more destructive aspects of rivalry within the groups. Each person's status was determined independently, by the "neutral" levels system. There was, therefore, remarkably little of the jockeying for position that may be seen in other companies, where the "hen‑pecking" order evolves dynamically as individuals win political battles over each other; in IBM there was usually little point in such counter‑productive activities, since performance (usually based on teamwork) was the basis of the judgements that influenced the system.

Levelling the Organisation…it may seem unduly bureaucratic, but in large organisations even a hierarchy can be made more flexible and many tensions reduced if status (and salary progression) is divorced from management position; using, for instance, something like the IBM system of levels. This is especially so if an element of uncertainty is introduced by making this a confidential process! With an awareness that the time of traditional hierarchies is numbered, there has been much discussion of the alternative possibilities; from matrix structures, where task management coexists with line management, but the currently favoured candidate is networking - a much looser structure of peer-to-peer relationships such as that which typically exists in consultancies and the new high-tech organisations (such as Microsoft). Such an increase in anarchy may be on the cards, but there has been little debate about how you control it - where the IBM concepts might at least make a useful contribution. Our own suggestion, 'cellular-organic' structures based - as we will see later - more directly on IBM, clearly take these lessons on board.

Despite the universality of levels, it can be seen that the salary structure in IBM was a minefield, to be negotiated with great care. If, as once happened to me, you bump up against the salary ceiling set by your level you might be lucky and be promoted. More likely you would be bought off by one of the range of special payments that IBM seemed able to conjure out of thin air to mollify potential complainants.

The presence of this minefield might have been one particular reason for IBM's unofficial, but well publicised, aversion to unions; and indeed it is difficult to see how any union could have successfully negotiated its way through the complexities to agree 'wage rates' (but perhaps that was also one of the reasons for the complexities in the first place!).

Incentives

At least in theory IBM believed that incentives were necessary to motivate its employees, as well as rewarding them for their contributions. The A & C process was supposedly the greatest incentive of all. The reality was that almost by definition IBM'ers were then 'self‑starters' who generally had no need for such external, management led, stimuli to persuade them. There was little evidence that the various incentives had a direct effect; many members of staff worked just as hard, without incentive, as their opposite numbers in the field. In addition even some of the most productive members of the field were given 'memorandum' (i.e. non‑measurable) quotas, because their sales campaigns had to extend beyond the one year that was IBM's only field time-unit; and yet these non‑incented salesmen still produced the results. Much the same individual 'self-starter' motivation is even more important in Microsoft - where 'entrepreneurialism' is promoted so heavily.

Incentives did, however, play an important series of indirect roles in IBM. The average IBM'er was an achiever, indeed usually an over‑achiever, who used the measurement offered by the incentives to 'pace' themselves. Above all, the IBM'er needed to achieve 100% of their objectives, for self esteem rather than financial reward. This was why the HPC (Hundred Per Cent Club; for successful sales personnel), with relatively minor financial implications, was still the greatest influence on the field force. The incentives were also used by IBM to focus attention on key activities. Thus the Sales Plan, in theory a description of the incentives, became the key 'planning' document in the field. Finally incentives were used to add a useful air of excitement and are accordingly used for dramatic effect; the HPC was pure theatre.

Incentive Theatre…the evidence, from IBM and other organisations, is that incentives need to be used in a much more sophisticated way than traditionally used - to direct attention to key aspects of performance, matched to the individual. It is not the scale of the incentive that matters, but the theatricality of its effect; since - as described by HRS - the individual will self-motivate, in line with such signals. There was, in the 1980s at least, a general belief held by most management theorists that managers worked best if they had a direct (usually financial) incentive; hence the justification for management buy-outs as well as the stock options which Bill Gates uses to motivate key personnel. The focus on financial incentives, typically focused on senior management, has more recently developed a life of its own. The 'theory' says that senior managers are so important that an organisation cannot pay too much to get the best; and, indeed, the effectiveness of IBM's most successful CEOs (and the damage caused by the worst) might seem to support this view.

There are, though, two main problems posed by this latest development in CEO payment packages - of which Lou Gerstner - but not any of his predecessors apart from Akers' 'golden parachute'  - is a beneficiary. The first is a problem within society; where the multi-million dollar payouts now received by 'fat-cat' CEOs is creating a dangerous split between business and the rest of the community. The second, more practical problem, is that - in the absence of many 'star-performing' managers - the corporations (incestuous) remuneration boards have to apply comparable rewards to second-rate managers (such as Akers) - setting easily attainable objectives which they can reach even if they fail - so that an increasing amount of corporate funding is being diverted to undeserving individuals (which adds fuel to the anger in society as a whole!).

The traditional IBM incentives applied particularly well to the field force, but not to quite the same extent in the case of the great majority of IBM'ers. Apart from the A & C, and its rating, the relatively few other incentives scattered around were invariably 'post‑factum', and they could not be used to pace or direct efforts; though they might still be useful for building excitement, and an esprit‑de‑corps. For most IBM'ers the A & C was thus the one key process.

Full Employment

Personnel Department itself was the guardian of a number of philosophies and processes that even more clearly distinguished IBM from other companies. The first, and absolutely fundamental, of these was the commitment to 'Full Employment'. A relevant booklet ('Employment in IBM') said "Full employment is a commitment on the part of IBM to maintain, through every reasonable and practical effort, continuous employment for regular employees who perform satisfactorily". IBM would then have liked to think that its employees had a job for life, but it was very careful to make certain that it did not put that in writing; one union `which challenged the apparently quite specific wording of this promise, was told that it was an 'intention' and as such was not necessarily legally binding!

Before the 1990s, IBM did, though, protect employment of its workforce, and did not go out of its way to decry the widespread belief (even reported by Buck Rodgers) that it had not made any of its workforce redundant in more than half a century. In reality there had been a few exceptions, but the record showed - up to that point -  that in these cases IBM effectively had no alternative and was very generous indeed in its treatment of the 'victims'. Certainly its employees believed that there was true security of employment. In an Opinion Survey as late as the early 1908s, for instance, more than 90% of employees stated that they were satisfied that they would be able to work for IBM as long as they performed satisfactorily. As I have said a number of times, though Bill Gates has not gone on the record with a comparable 'lifetime employment' guarantee, the impact of its rapid growth means that Microsoft has not had to declare an significant numbers or redundancies; so to the observers - on its own staff - the result is much the same as a 'secure employment' policy might be.

Job Changes…employment security was not, even then, the same as job security. Jobs were constantly disappearing in IBM, and their holders were moved on, retrained, to new positions. Due to the general feeling of job security, and the guarantees offered by the "levels" system, this was not normally seen by employees to be a problem; and many IBM'ers, myself included, even looked forward to the interest in learning a new job and new skills. These changes did also have the effect of producing a non‑specialised career path for many IBM'ers which is unusual in Western companies; but is almost standard in Japanese companies. However, when you have just uprooted your family for the third time in four years, as some of my colleagues experienced, you do begin to have some doubts! As Microsoft's 'product' is much less broadly based and more homogeneous - vanilla blend software - there should in any case be less thrashing around as different demand levels impact the splits between offerings.

From IBM's point of view "employment security" was then a basic, moral, commitment. In addition, though, it had the very real advantage for IBM that the its workforce was almost uniquely flexible; and accepted, or at least tolerated, "I've Been Moved" (IBMers' own expansion of 'IBM'). The most obvious comparison is with the larger Japanese corporations who have, since the 1950's, also offered a "job for life"; and have been similarly rewarded by loyalty coupled with flexibility on the part of their workforces - though even there was some movement in the 1990s as the world-wide recession bit deeper. Microsoft's employees, with a much narrower range of skills and based on the Richmond (Seattle) campus, will have had far fewer problems with reassignment.

It is difficult, however, for most firms to even consider the apparently absurd extravagance of 'full employment', when they are subject to cyclical booms and recessions. On the other hand the IBM, and Japanese, experience says that it is a form of investment that shows a return far in advance of most others. In any case IBM - before the disasters of the 1980s and 1990s - was typically staffed for the recession, low, end of the cycle and drew on the loyalty of its staff to cope with the extra work generated by the booms; and such was their calibre that they did. Bill Gates follows much the same approach. It has to be admitted, though, that IBM had then long had the luxury of almost constant growth which could be used to balance out any short term miscalculations (as Microsoft still has); and the philosophy became difficult to apply in a static company - and especially difficult to maintain after the mid-1980s when it became obvious that John Opel's expansion of employee numbers by a third (up to 400,000) had been a terrible mistake!

This 'employment security' was probably the most important link between IBM, where the policy was very unusual for a Western company, and the major Japanese companies (where it has been standard since being 'imported' by MITI; in the 1950's; though, even in the best of times, it still does not extend to the lower two thirds of Japanese business). It was also the key element that William G Ouchi identified as the basis for trust; which in turn is said to be the main driving force of the 'Japanese Miracle', and also of IBM's comparable success at the time.

Lifetime Employment…the importance of this philosophy as the basis for building the relationship with employees cannot be overstressed. The commitment by the organisation in this way directly leads to a much greater degree of flexibility, and indirectly to employee loyalty and commitment. It is not, though, about job security; with the changing environment individuals regularly have to learn new roles. Less appreciated is that a corollary is that manpower planning must take into account this philosophy. If too many people are hired, by mistake or incompetence, then Lifetime Employment is difficult to maintain. This is especially true of planning for booms (when it is all too easy to accept the principle) and busts (when it becomes much more difficult - but much more important). It was especially true, in the late 1980s, of IBM - and was a major factor in its demise.

Personal Development

Beyond the basic feeling of security, though, IBM'ers were offered the prospect of personal development. This 'development' might not be into management for, as in all companies, there were usually more Indians than chiefs. But the IBM'er could still expect to be trained and educated to fulfil a considerable amount of their personal potential, and a great deal more than would be developed in another company. They had, in any case, the opportunity to graduate to ever more senior levels of the "professional staff"; and such senior professional staff, even though not managers, were given high status in IBM. They still could have an interesting job or, more accurately, series of jobs. At its most basic this involved IBM in implementing one of the first job enrichment programmes in its plants, switching from the monotony of impersonal assembly lines (which are now, in IBM, largely the province of the robot) to small groups. Once more following the report of this in Peter F Drucker's "The Practice of Management", the Japanese also adopted this approach; which is now said to be one of their particular strengths.

At its most exotic an IBM'er, such as myself, who was strong willed enough (or probably, more accurately, bloody‑minded enough) could demand their choice of interesting jobs (though usually at the price of forfeiting management progression). In my 15 years I had 8 different jobs, in at least 4 totally distinct disciplines. Thus, while I spent about a third of this time in sales and marketing activities, which had been my bread and butter for 10 years before joining IBM, I spent a further third as a lecturer - teaching computing skills and sales techniques at one extreme and business management (in conjunction with the academics at the London Business School) at the other. In the remaining third I became one of the world's leading experts in the new, and very esoteric, medical discipline of Apheresis; at the same time in effect running my own small business within IBM. It was a fascinating 15 year voyage of discovery, and one that I was allowed to choose for myself. A number of times I was pressurised by senior management to take other jobs, but when I resisted I was allowed to follow my own choice.

Again, this long term personal development process (across functions within the same company; as opposed to the more usual Western practice of across companies within the one functional specialisation) is directly comparable with the deliberately slow evaluation and promotion process 'traditionally' adopted within the larger Japanese companies - though in recent years the pressures from high-flying younger managers have started to dismantle this approach even there. Such personal development is much more difficult to foster in a company such as Microsoft. It has a quite narrow range of skills, split quite significantly between the main groups of personnel (it is difficult to see administrators switching to become software developers or vice versa), and the very flat management structure (which, as a result of information now being passed through the computer networks, is now a feature of most companies) means that succession to higher levels of management is open to very few!

The Breadth of Personal Development…this should be part of the A&C process, but the key in a changing world is that this should also take the individual outside of the current role, to develop him or her - as in Japanese corporations as well as IBM - by exposure to a range of functions across the organisation. This avoids the normal danger, inherent in the West (and in its functional specialisms), of individuals being locked into specific career paths; though, as the management pyramids flatten, it is becoming more and more difficult to implement.

Promotion to Management…for many IBM'ers, though, the most tempting prospect is a move into management, and this is made a more likely prospect by the fact that even now all, with virtually no exceptions (that the new CEO has been brought in from outside is a major break with tradition), promotions to management, and within management, are from within IBM. It is only where very exotic skills are required (a competent CEO, perhaps!), which cannot be met from within IBM, that it goes outside. This is a commendable practice, once again shared with the Japanese, in terms of employee motivation and natural justice; but it does occasionally result in some symptoms of "in‑breeding".

Single Status…as the mid 1980s approached, though, the enviable employment security had already been bought, at least in part, at the expense of creating first and second class citizens. When I reported this in my last book on IBM, this came as something of a surprise to IBM since it was then inordinately proud of being a single status company (as is also the case for Microsoft, another lesson Bill Gates learnt from IBM); and ascribed at least some of its success to this factor, as do Japanese companies. Every permanent employee was entitled to the same conditions; as, again, is the case at Microsoft and the newer high-tech companies. Thus everyone, from chief executive to cleaner, ate in the same restaurant (as compared with one UK subsidiary of a multinational, where I worked in the 1960's, which had 6 carefully graded levels of restaurants and canteens for a mere 600 employees!). In IBM no‑one even had the status accorded by a reserved parking space (which ensured that there are usually plenty of spaces provided; no‑one seriously wanted to face the possible ire of a senior executive with nowhere to park!). Since 1959 when Tom Watson Jr put all IBM employees on salary, "Single Status" was a philosophy taken very seriously throughout IBM, and one that genuinely worked in practice as well as theory. As I have said, it is one of IBM's practices which has also been implemented by Microsoft.

It goes without saying that IBM was an equal opportunity employer, though it was only with Tom Watson Jr. that this was first implemented; prior to that IBM had followed a typical white Anglo-Saxon protestant approach (the Watsons were Methodists). IBM is now dedicated to equal opportunity, though it refuses to implement reverse discrimination. I was present a few years back at a quarterly meeting of the 50 or so top UK managers when the agenda ambitiously called for them to review the problems of sex discrimination. Their agonising went on for nearly an hour, the consensus being that IBM did not have really a significant problem (though it was clear from the nature of some of the comments that a few of those present, as in any company, had some serious reservations; not to say prejudice). It was finally agreed though that progress must be by merit alone. The cult of the meritocracy was basic in IBM, and outweighed any more tender moralities.

It should be noted that equal opportunity is not a feature of Japanese companies. Their women employees are frequently treated as second class citizens (as are those who are not of pure Japanese stock). I well remember even in the 1990s walking though the Japanese embassy in London with the ambassador and being rather shocked to see its women employees - Western ones as much as Japanese - almost literally pressing themselves against the walls (whilst simultaneously bowing) to make space for us! They are often employed as temporaries; to be laid off before any men, even if they have been with the organisation for 20 years. Not all Japanese lessons are so admirable in Western eyes! Theory "Z" predicts that organisations such as IBM should (as an extension of their innate xenophobia) also be somewhat racist and sexist; one prediction that IBM generally disproves.

Temps…the discrepancy which allowed first and second class citizens, despite IBM's brave claims to single status, was that between "regular" (i.e. permanent or established) and temporary employees. In the 1980s in parts of IBM perhaps a third of the total workforce were either temporary, hired for a few months and then fired (or "released" in the suitably inoffensive IBM jargon), or "contract" labour (supplied as part of contract catering for example). Where its employment practices for "regular" staff were exemplary, its use of this other category of labour was far less commendable; indeed IBM would seem to have had a completely blind spot about them. They were effectively "non‑beings". They were hired from agencies which were generally chosen on the basis of the lowest bid; cheap labour, with all its implications. IBM was lucky, though, that its reputation still attracted a high level of candidates; probably in the mistaken hope that such temporary employment was the route to a permanent job. In practice very few temps were allowed to make the transition.

They were offered none of the rights and privileges accorded to other IBM employees, and indeed IBM's approach was probably most accurately described as turning a blind eye to them; it apparently did not even want to admit they existed, perhaps because its personnel policies simply could not cope with a problem on this scale, if acknowledged. In fairness to IBM it has to be conceded that the theory, at least, was that IBM was then currently in the process of moving to a new computer based structure, where significantly less admin and secretarial staff were to be needed. The temporary staff were thus needed only in the short term; true temporaries. It is also fair to say that the temps received better treatment from IBM, and from IBM'ers, than they would with other companies. But even so it was still hard to equate the feelings of a tearful temp on her last day with IBM, being "released" after a few months as part of the IBM family, with IBM's genuine commitment to "Respect for the Individual".

Single Status…another basic principle should be that all employees are equal, since a shared fate demands this. This is easy to achieve for many employee rights, such as shared restaurants. It must, though, be very carefully managed in terms of the most fundamental rights - such as lifetime employment - where many organisations have mixed groups of workers; permanent employees, alongside temps and contractors (often with no obvious distinctions otherwise). Labor economics clearly identifies (according to Atkinson) the existence of such peripheral workers, and sectors of the economy (according to Doeringer & Poire) where the smaller companies (often sub-contractors) are also 'under-privileged'!

Cynics might claim that this use of sub-contract temps was an introduction of the policy that is widespread in Japan; where a significant proportion of the workforce (usually women, as mentioned earlier) are temporaries, to be laid off instead of the permanent workforce (usually men). Similarly IBM's increased use of contractors and suppliers might also have been seen to parallel the (perhaps rather morally questionable) use made by the top Japanese corporations of the smaller companies that comprise the remaining 65% of the economy. These small suppliers are again regularly "laid off" by the corporations in order that their own permanent workforces can remain unaffected; a job for life is only offered to the chosen few, in the larger Japanese corporations (and is in effect subsidised by the less fortunate two thirds in the smaller companies)! The parallel is there, but I believe that in IBM's case this usually then was an anomaly not a deliberate policy as it is in Japan. It seems possible, however, that - in line with the general move to outsourcing - IBM's policies are now more deliberate in their application.

Speak-Up

For the "regular" employees there were a number of communications channels, under the guardianship of Personnel Department, which were intended to "guarantee" that the theory was born out in practice. Of these the most frequently used by individuals was the "Speak Up" process. Surveys showed that at some time or another a third of IBM'ers used this process; and the running rate was numbered in the many thousands per annum. Under it an employee could complain anonymously and have this complaint addressed by the highest level of management necessary to answer the problem; with a guideline of a reply in no more than 10 days. The evidence was that, because of its anonymity (which was guaranteed by being handled by a special "Speak Up Co-ordinator" within Personnel Department), this process was respected by employees and management alike. Microsoft probably does not rely on such mechanisms, where Bill Gates (who would likely be the arbiter) is renowned to thrive on conflict - reportedly being confrontational, rude and  condescending!

Speak Up…providing anonymous complaints procedures is one way of letting employees tell you what is going wrong - and as such is an important source of management information, not least as an early warning signal of problems - but (as long as it is perceived to be working) it will also help to defuse the specific situation. In theory it should now be widely implemented, often in effect required by law, in the form of a formal grievance procedure; though it is observed more by its absence in day to day practice (can you imagine a Microsoft employee confronting Bill Gates?).

Open Door…in theory the other main communication channel for individuals, the "Open Door" process, should have carried more clout. Under it an employee could "open door" up his management ladder (in theory as far as Armonk) until he or she received a satisfactory answer. Again, according to surveys about a third of personnel had used this process, then involving around 10% of the work-force each year. Most of these were resolved fairly low on the management ladder, but a quarter went as far as divisional management; and 2% got as far as Armonk. The process was taken very seriously by Armonk. Thus Tom Watson Jr. supported its continuation, on the grounds that "it acts as a deterrent to the possible abuse of managerial power", although even he conceded "from time to time we have had second thoughts on this practice". Frank Cary later again supported it with the view that it is "my assurance ‑ and yours ‑ that IBM can be flexible and big enough to cope with error".

The Open Door process was, however, less highly regarded than the Speak Up process by all concerned, probably because in this case anonymity was lost. Employees often felt that using it would damage their career without rectifying the problem. In fact most such appeals were lost (despite the clear conviction by the employee that some wrong definitely had taken place). On the other side of the table the managers involved reported, according to the Opinion Survey, that they also saw it as a threat.

Appeal Courts…complaints procedures which are not anonymous, and which rely on management participation, are best viewed as rights of appeal - since employees will only make use of them when all else has failed. Even so, they are an essential part of personnel processes, if they are to be seen to be fair (though, again, would you want to confront Bill Gates in this way!). Complaints procedures, though not as rigorous as this, are dealt with by HRS theory.

Bridge Interviews…such communications processes were, though, largely peripheral. They were "safety valves" to let the employees vent their  feelings rather than a genuine means of change, To supplement them, at the end of the 1970's IBM  instituted a programme with rather more teeth. This was the "Bridge Interview"; referred to as the "Executive Interview" in the US. Under this scheme each employee had an obligatory interview , at least once a year, with his manager's manager. This was more effective simply because it did not require the employee to take the initiative and thus possibly label himself as a trouble maker. It certainly was an excellent incentive to management to take their subordinates views seriously, for they knew that these might otherwise surface in this Bridge Interview. This programme was, however, also the first to be quietly dropped in the 1980s (though Buck Rodgers still dutifully recorded its existence in his book); possibly management found it too onerous. This is a pity since it was becoming one of IBM's braver, and most effective, personnel devices.

Bridge Interviews…as we saw earlier, the A&C process has been copied by other organisations. The extension to the bridge interview, however, makes this a much more powerful process - not least since it disrupts the somewhat cosy relationships which can limit the one level interchange, and surfaces problems which exist with the managers involved. Once more, this approach - giving teeth to the counseling process - is absent in most of the organizations which use such an approach.

Opinion Surveys

The one communications process that did have significant, and long lasting, impact was the "Opinion Survey" - though, as its message grew less and less acceptable to senior management, it too was in effect killed. The process was very simple. Every two years IBM conducted an opinion survey amongst its employees. The survey was once more guaranteed to be anonymous; even to the extent that no results were reported for groups of less than 10 employees (since it might otherwise be possible to deduce individual's answers). It was a mark of the trust that its employees had in IBM that, despite the fact that confidentiality was in the hands of an internal IBM department, the very great majority, of the order of 90%, completed the survey; honestly and critically.

The survey was lengthy, it typically took an hour to complete, and was thorough as well as wide ranging. Its questions struck right to the heart of how IBM managed both its employees and its business. The key questions related to the employee's view of how IBM affected them; their conditions of employment (ranging from the perpetually vexed question of salary through to the more parochial details of their physical environment). In addition, though, it also asked questions, at some length, about how the employee viewed IBM's management of its operations - the answers to which must have been especially unwelcome to Armonk in the later 1980s (when they last seemed to take any notice of it). Finally, and most daringly of all, it asked employees to evaluate their own line manager!

Where possible the questions remained the same from survey to survey, so that trends could be seen as they emerged. In particular results on the key questions were combined to derive a "Morale Index".

The results of the survey were eagerly awaited by all IBM'ers, not least those at the higher levels. For IBM then took the results very seriously indeed. Only a serious failure to meet his or her quota target was worse for a manager than a vote of no confidence by their subordinates. At times when a poor quota performance was matched by a slump in morale, such as happened in 1976 to GSD in the UK, even the divisional manager might feel uneasy for a while and indeed the one in question was moved to IBM's version of Siberia; I dread to think what happened throughout IBM after the mid-1980s!

A network of senior managers was set up throughout IBM, specifically to monitor the results presentations and the subsequent action plans. For the climax of the process then was not publication of a sanitised report. It was, instead, a series of departmental meetings (of all departments throughout IBM) at which each manager had to present the results relating not just to the whole of IBM but also to his or her specific group. It must surely have been the most difficult moment in a manager's life when they had to face their department and tell them that they had just been given the thumbs down! What was worse was that they next had to agree with their subordinates an action plan to resolve all the problems that they had just reported; this action plan was then "registered" by the senior manager handling that part of IBM's Opinion Survey.

It was first of all a discipline on management. It was a very cogent reason why they should look after their employees; if they were not otherwise to pay the price in a maximum of two years time. It is fair to say though that the impact of this discipline was most obvious in the few weeks immediately prior to the survey, when managers suddenly seemed much more approachable!

The programme really did have teeth, which was its great strength. For example Buck Rodgers reported that "At one time the marketing reps' opinion of a particular division's management had dropped significantly. The complaints were justified. We gave the division president ninety days to get things turned around, or he would be replaced. We had to replace him".

At the level of senior management, either in the countries or at Armonk, the top level results were avidly seized upon as a very good barometer of opinion inside IBM. Employee morale had been a key measure of IBM performance since the time of the Watsons.

The Opinion Survey is a device that could be very profitably adopted by other companies. Indeed its use is almost a pre‑requisite for all the other actions I would recommend; since it alone, in my experience, will truly show how effectively these other policies are being implemented. It was the one device in IBM that guaranteed that senior management could never become divorced from the realities; this was again probably a major reason for its later abandonment (and for senior management's subsequent flights of fancy). It may give them some nasty shocks, even IBM in its best times received such shocks; but not to know the bad news, and be able to rectify the problems, is far worse.

The Opinion Survey…the simplest, and most effective, device for promoting sound relationships with employees is a regular (annual or biannual) survey of their opinions. It must be anonymous (and guaranteed to be such) and its results must be publicly acted upon. Ideally the opinions sought should also be applicable to a number of levels within the organisation; from the top (most important) level down to the individual's own manager (who must also be made accountable). Such a survey can easily take place within weeks of a decision to run it - and its impacts can be seen within months. Surprisingly, management theory places minimal stress on such surveys, as however it does on 'market' research in general (seeming to much prefer prescriptive theory to practical investigation)!

Enlightened Personnel Policies

By whatever means IBM did have an enviable, and fully justified, reputation for the most enlightened personnel policies. This was no short term fad, for such policies had been at the core of IBM's business since Thomas J Watson first joined it in 1914. As such there was a great element of morality behind their implementation; it was the only way the Watsons would have wanted to do business. At the same time though it was eminently profitable, for it resulted in a workforce of very high intellectual calibre which was superbly motivated; and this was central to IBM's extraordinary success. In comparison it would be interesting to ask IBM's the same questions in the 2000s.

Possibly uniquely amongst Western businesses IBM at that time achieved many of the positive employee relationships that are seen to be so important to the success of the Japanese business style. This is less surprising where it is realised that - as described earlier - in the 1950's the Japanese copied at least some of these from the from IBM itself.

IBM had, most importantly, persuaded its employees that they had the security of a job for life. Unlike the Japanese, though, it did this without paternalism. It did not get involved in the private lives of its employees. It might once have done so but Tom Watson Jr put an end to such intrusions. For there are some significant hidden problems associated with the "paternalistic" approach earlier adopted by IBM; and which is still at the heart of the "Japanese" management style.

Myopia…the problems that still existed were hidden not just to the outside world but also to the participants; for the culture was typically blind to any of these flaws. Indeed such strong cultures share the feature of any strong belief or religion that they are almost impervious to outside values, to the extent that they will deny to themselves even the possibility of any fallibility. This blindness was perhaps seen most clearly in the IBM of those times in terms of its quite untypical treatment of its second class citizens, described earlier in this chapter. Its apparently uncaring attitude was, I believe, better described then as unthinking; the culture ensured that its adherents were not even exposed to such an unpalatable thought. The later violence it perpetrated, especially in the early 1990s, on its own employees was, on the other hand, deliberate!

Possibly the best review of the hidden problems of the pure "paternalistic" culture is that in Rodney Clark's description of his pseudonymous Japanese company, Marumaru; in the book "The Japanese Company". Even the now sacrosanct "lifetime employment" is shown by him to be a strictly limited concept; with many exceptions; to which the culture remains steadfastly oblivious. He does, though, come to the important conclusion that the strength of the system is not in the reality but in the perception of the participants; quite simply if the employees believe that there is "lifetime employment" then they will make the commitment to their employer that is so typical of the Japanese workforce (even where the reality shows significant exceptions to this philosophy it still cannot destroy this commitment). Unfortunately, by the turn of the 1990s - with a hundred thousand employees clearly in excess of its needs - nobody in IBM could have had any doubt that the concept of lifetime employment inside IBM was dead!

The IBM of the 1970s had, as a result of Watson Jr's reforms, avoided the worst of the Japanese problems highlighted by Clark; but even in IBM, albeit to a limited extent, most of them were still present under the surface, still unnoticed by the culture. One of the differences that distinguished that IBM was that it had been able to go beyond the crudest level of "holistic" relationships that are central to Japanese organisation, and are its strength. Something of this ilk was clearly an important part of the earlier IBM culture under T J Watson. His son, though, moved IBM on to the next level; successfully achieving the same results without having to pay the full price of corporate paternalism. In later times IBM deliberately shunned anything that might have been considered unwonted contact with employees' private lives. Even "family dinners", which used to be regular events, were relatively rare; indeed I only attended two in 15 years. IBM appeared to lean over backwards to avoid any such contact. Indeed relatively few IBM'ers have any contact with other IBM'ers outside of work. In any case this is usually difficult where there is a relatively wide dispersion of IBM'ers, who because of their typical history of moves tend to commute from further away than do employees in other companies. The culture may be strong, but it ceases as soon as an IBM'er returns to the bosom of his family.

The Decline and Fall

I do not believe that, despite the fact that he was (with his obsession for becoming the 'lowest cost producer') the prime architect of the problems (especially those in the personnel policies area) which later beset IBM, John Opel would have knowingly betrayed IBM's beliefs. Over the period of his tenure, though, his chosen successor John Akers did just that; and it has to be admitted that John Opel (along with Frank Cary) was on the board that allowed him to do so.

HRS is a Fragile Flower - trust can be destroyed much faster than it can be built. It took decades for IBM, and the Japanese corporations, to build their relationships of trust with employees. It is clear that John Akers was able to destroy this inside IBM within a few years; and, as his intentions and actions became more obvious, perhaps within months. HRS must be guarded carefully. It is a hothouse flower which will only bloom in the right climate; remove that climate and it soon withers. The decline in the academic importance of HRS shows that this aspect is even truer in terms of theory!

Approaching Death…by 1993, when John Akers himself fell foul of IBM's newly aggressive approach to job security (though, having received a seven figure payoff, one doubts that he was poverty stricken as a result), almost every one of the policies described in this chapter had been destroyed. Some of them remained in theory, such as the 'communication processes', but were so cynically manipulated in practice as to be worthless - and were seen to be so by its employees.

Catastrophically, for the future of IBM, its lifetime employment policy had been abandoned. Even before it had been formally abandoned this had led to an exodus of IBM's best people, and those that remained were pursuing defensive actions to protect their own jobs - so that any thoughts of positive participation, and especially of flexibility, had all but disappeared.

Worst of all had been the unnecessary brutality of it all. Because nobody wanted to admit, before the final days, that 'lifetime employment' was no longer feasible, the processes for getting rid of people had to be largely illicit; and, as such were uncontrollable. At the time I had not noticed this aspect amongst my own contacts with people inside IBM - but they were the 'best' who could, and did, choose to leave IBM on their own terms. Paul Carroll, in his book Big Blues, chronicles however the pains which were inflicted on the lesser mortals - people which Armonk in its blindness no longer even saw. He described the very real hurt to its employees and families IBM caused; hurt which at times even drove them to suicide.

Final Solutions…it is all too easy, once you have been forced to abandon your ethical position, to escalate to ever less palatable solutions (indeed, you will probably not even notice it happening). In the context of the US 'Bay of Pigs' disaster, Irvin Janis[2] developed the concept of 'groupthink' which does go some way to explaining such management blindness.

I would not have believed in this, and would have thought it to be sensational journalism - save for one thing; a conversation I had at that time with the head of one of the outplacement agencies which had been hired by IBM to handle some of its many casualties. In the first instance he confirmed the picture of wave after wave of IBM's best people choosing to escape, before the mixture gradually switched to less and less able employees - who were slowly being forced out (despite IBM's supposed adherence then to its beliefs). The thing that finally shattered by faith in the IBM of that time was his description of these latter cases. He described them as 'damaged people'. Despite his own involvement in the process, he was vehement in his criticism of IBM. It had employed these people, often for decades, and made them part of its culture. It had then ruthlessly thrown them on the scrap heap, in the process often destroying their lives which had been so intertwined with that of the corporation. Unbelievably, though, many of these had also been under psychological pressure (which might have done justice to the KGB in its heyday - and certainly would have been recognised by Franz Kafka), sometimes facing daily uncertainty for months, to force them out. He described them as people who had been psychologically scarred by the whole process; who would probably never be able to work again. I hope that Tom Watson Jr, who died on the last day of 1993, never heard of this. It would have broken his heart; maybe it did.

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