If you need a pick-me-up this morning, today’s Sunday book review may help. It is a book written by Sir James Dyson. It’s entitled, “James Dyson: Invention: A life.”
And if you have not heard of him, well, you may have used one of his electrical appliances, in particular, his company’s bagless vacuum cleaner. In fact, ST’s Sumiko had recently written a Sunday feature on him, titled “Lunch with Sumiko: No such thing as a silly idea, says billionaire inventor James Dyson.” It’s an informative read.
Sir Jame Dyson has indeed made his mark, an engineering dent, in the world we are living in. You can read about him in the book. I believe it’s all there, from his rise and fall, and rise and fall, and rise and fall again. This is a 74-year-old grandfather who doesn’t take “no” or “impossible” for an answer.
Dyson is an industrial icon when it comes to marrying business organization and engineering design, and over the decades it was a good marriage; one as long as the marriage with his wife, Deirdre. That’s a marriage of 53 stellar years, with three kids and six grandkids.
I will leave the best bits for you to read in his book and Sumiko’s interview, but I just want to highlight two qualities here that have driven this man for decades.
First, how naivety is critical to him. Yes, you heard it right. Dyson is one boss who is wary of anyone who comes to him and says he is an expert. That rings alarm bells for him. Here is why.
"An experienced person will only put forward a sensible suggestion, which might work, whereas a naive person, or a young person who is unafraid to make mistakes, will ask the wrong question, will make an outrageous suggestion, which might actually be a very good idea."
He adds: “"Being very open to every suggestion and not ever saying 'that's a silly idea, don't be so stupid' - that's my style. I like the unobvious suggestion... I get very worried when someone says they're an expert."”
Well, I guess naivety is an attractive feature if you are always willing to learn from anyone, regardless of how many years of experience he or she has (or lack thereof). And if an expert is open minded enough, he too has a naive aspect within his vast knowledge. It is the area of his knowledge that is burning with childlike curiosity, and it is most fertile when he suspends judgment and pleads ignorance.
Sure, I am not so naive to think that Dyson will entertain every form of naivety. Some of them come with their own hidden agenda. Some are a direct result of sloth. And others are just plain attention seeking.
But I believe the kind of naivety Dyson and other admired leaders are looking for is one about attitude, before competency. You may be in the business for many years, but if you are self-conceited and arrogant, it becomes your blindside.
You then narrow your perspective of things, or your options. You also cover less distance when it comes to solving problems creatively. There is also a tendency to take every idea that doesn’t gel with yours as a personal insult, rather as one about dealing with the issue at hand.
Dyson recounted that one of his most inventive engineers is 84 years old. ““He's not using his experience, he's using his creative brain. It's not '40 years ago I saw this and I know how to do that'. He's like a young student doing something for the first time."”
Let me clarify that ultimately, you can’t avoid becoming an expert over time, when you practise long enough your trade, profession, or craft. People will look to you for solutions in your area of specialty. That is unavoidable.
But like Dyson said, from a veritable expert himself, it is about “being very open to every suggestion” and embracing the “unobvious suggestion” even from the most unlikely source, that is, from a young engineer fresh from grad school.
Here, the words of one professor would be instructive: “Becoming an expert of this kind involves a shift in who you are, not just in how much you know and what you can do.” (Prof Roger Kneebone).
There you have it, your attitude counts the most, that is, the who-you-have-become precedes the what-you-know or what-you-can-do. An expert is thus a “becoming” journey, not an “arrival” destination, especially in the area of invention and innovation. So, yes, you know a lot, you are highly sought after, but at what price is such knowledge gained? Or, what have you become in your road to fame?
And the second quality that Sir James Dyson possesses is captured in his own words. It is a rather familiar quality we all know.
““What produces success? “The answer lies in failure,” he declares.””
This is one man who knew failure intimately. He made 5,126 prototypes of the revolutionary bagless vacuum cleaner in his garden shed before version 5,127 was a success. He was booted out by shareholders for making the mistake of assigning the patent of his ballbarrow invention to the wrong company.
And these were his words spoken from the many scars of personal experience. “I've lived with huge personal debt until I was well into my forties. Not having a debt - if that's the measure of success - came to me very late in life."
In the book, Dyson wrote: “Investment in new technologies requires many leaps of faith and huge financial commitment over long period. Ours has been more of a pilgrim’s progress than a straight path to success.”
He added that ““progress comes from a drive of “relentlessly dissatisfied engineers” who wish to improve their own product. There is no competition as acute as self-competition.””
I guess that is what it takes for a breakthrough, or many breakthroughs, and it comes first from inside us, that is, a personal breakthrough wrought from the crucible of our personal trials. This first breakthrough is a confrontation of self, and it is a rigorous kind of self-competition that is determined to produce tangible results.
Alas, those are the two qualities I wish to highlight from a man who knew failures, tasted its bittersweet, but instead of giving up, he befriended it, learned from it, and turned them around, while always keeping his eye and heart on the goal at hand. His life and the results speak for itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment