3M Company | Growing Reputation: 1950s
Growing Reputation: 1950s
Such growth could not be ignored. Now that 3M was publicly traded (having debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in 1946), investment bankers took to recommending it as a buy, business magazines sent reporters to write about it, and other companies tried to figure out how 3M continued to excel. McKnight's immediate successor as president, Richard Carlton, encapsulated the company's special path to prosperity with the phrase: "We'll make any damn thing we can make money on." Yet the 3M method involved a great deal more than simply making and selling. Its métier had been, and would continue to be, finding uninhabited markets and then filling them relentlessly with high-quality products. Therefore, research and development received money that most companies spent elsewhere—most companies still did not have such departments by the early 1950s—and the pursuit for ideas was intense.
Carlton kept the company focused on product research...
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