"Tom Watson, though, held his team and himself to a different standard. As he explained to his men in 1930 at the outset of the Depression, "No man deserves any special credit for being an average man. It is the men who are striving to be above the average who are the men who build business--they are the men who build nations." This belief applied to every person, including himself as the person holding the title of the CEO, because a policy was "a policy for the entire organization; not for just one man." The average, in his eyes, was "the average" because the "above average" carried the rest. He was determined to be one of the great CEOs who would carry the rest."