If joining IBM was commitment, not employment, and the company engaged in something more than business, it had a right to demand of its men unconditional loyalty, Watson believed.
"If you are loyal you are successful," ruminated the company paper at one time. "All useful work is raised to the plane of art when love for the task-loyalty-is fused with the effort. Loyalty is the great lubricant of life. It saves the wear and tear of making daily decisions as to what is best to do. The man who is loyal to his work is not wrung nor perplexed by doubts, he sticks to the ship, and if the ship founders he goes down like a hero with colors flying at the masthead and the band playing."
Joining a company is an act that calls for absolute loyalty in big matters and little ones.
This kind of intense loyalty, then, became the well-spring of the IBM spirit, the family spirit as it was called.
