“wild ducks”

" Q. What is the origin of the term “wild ducks” in IBM history and culture?
A. Your question is best answered by the words of former IBM Chairman Thomas J.
Watson, Jr., in his book, A Business And Its Beliefs: The Ideas That Helped Build IBM, published
by McGraw-Hill in 1963:
In IBM we frequently refer to our need for “wild ducks.” The moral is drawn from a story by the
Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard. He told of a man on the coast of Zealand who liked to watch
the wild ducks fly south in great flocks each fall. Out of charity, he took to putting feed for them in a
nearby pond. After a while some of the ducks no longer bothered to fly south; they wintered in
Denmark on what he fed them.
In time they flew less and less. When the wild ducks returned, the others would circle up to greet
them but then head back to their feeding grounds on the pond. After three or four years they grew so
lazy and fat that they found difficulty in flying at all.
Kierkegaard drew his point — you can make wild ducks tame, but you can never make tame
ducks wild again. One might also add that the duck who is tamed will never go anywhere any more."

Extrait du site des Archives d'IBM
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/documents/pdf/faq.pdf