“THINK. THEN DO.”

Thomas J. Watson Sr., the founder of IBM, was a master at taking a complex task and simplifying it so that everyone in the organization could understand and implement the objectives. He crafted IBM’s famous (and ubiquitous) motto from a single word: “THINK.” The motto epitomized Watson’s devout rationalism. “All the problems of the world,” he told his employees “could be solved easily if men were only willing to think.”

Watson was a man of action and it probably didn't occur to him that thinkers, having thought, sometimes failed to recognize that there is a time to quit thinking and take action. Since Watson’s time, the global economy has undergone a tectonic shift, and the leaders at IBM have realized that the old motto was a little out of sync and changed its official slogan to “THINK. THEN DO.” Still simple, easily understood, and implementable.