IBM's Interchangeable Management Team

In The Organization Man, William H. Whyte Jr. described the management training process at IBM: "By deliberately exposing a man to a succession of environments, they best obtain that necessity of the large organization--the man who can fit in anywhere. 'The training,' as an IBM executive succinctly puts it, 'makes our men interchangeable.' " Though that corporate portrait is 16 years old, IBM proved once again last week that its leadership, like its computers, is a smoothly running assemblage of interchangeable parts.

T. Vincent Learson, chairman and chief executive of the corporation for only 15 months, chose his 60th birthday to announce that he will retire next Jan. 1. He will be replaced by Frank T. Gary, 51, now IBM's president. Learson's departure, in fact, is little more than a routine management turnover. Back in 1966, when he became president, he expressed his intention of stepping down at 60. Learson will leave the corporation in brimming health; IBM's first-half net income rose 22%, to a record $618 million, on record revenues of $4.7 billion.

Beginning the day after Learson steps down, IBM will require its 37 other top officers to retire at 60. The new age limit will apply to Learson's predecessor, Thomas J. Watson Jr., who will turn 60 on Jan. 8, 1974. Chief executive of IBM for 15 years, Watson gave up that title last year after a heart attack but remained a member of the company's board and its top decision-making body, the Corporate Office. IBM's present retirement age of 65 will continue to cover the remainder of its 265,493 employees, but some expect that the new executive age limit will eventually be applied to all. IBM is not the first large firm to move toward earlier retirement for high officers. Last July Westinghouse Electric began requiring its top seven executives to retire at 60 and become "officer-directors," who devote their attention to "socially important issues" that affect the company.

Learson, a 37-year veteran of IBM, was responsible for developing many products, particularly the highly successful System/360. Introduced in 1964, the 360 has done more than any other recent innovation to maintain IBM's technological and financial lead over the rest of the computer industry.

Gary, the chairman-designate, joined the company in 1948 as a salesman in Los Angeles after he was graduated from u.C.L.A. He became a vice president in 1966 and succeeded Learson as president last year. So far, no one has been named to replace Cary in the presidency. Likely contenders include two men from IBM World Trade Corp., the overseas arm that accounted for half of the parent firm's profits last year. They are Gilbert E. Jones, the Trade Corp.'s chief executive, who will move up into the Corporate Office on Jan. 1, and Jacques G. Maisonrouge, a French citizen, who will replace Jones as chief executive of IBM World Trade.

Learson will remain on IBM's board, but he says that he will take advantage of his retirement to "sharpen up my golf, do some more sailing, travel, and spend more time with my family. I've had 37 years of fun working with IBM. My wife and I now want to have some fun loafing." Spectacled and softspoken, Cary offers a noticeable contrast to his imposing and forceful predecessor. But Cary is not expected to introduce any alterations to IBM management style. Says a former IBM financial executive: "At IBM, the players may come and go, but the play remains the same."

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