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Sir James Dyson on risks, failures, and making good products

By Alvin Soon - 26 Dec 2016

James Dyson on risks and failures

Note: This article was first published on 19th December 2016.

Sir James Dyson. Image credit: Dyson.

Sir James Dyson is 70 years old, but doesn’t look a wrinkle over 60. He has a steady voice that he uses to crack disarming jokes, and a youthful energy that isn’t afraid to answer, “I don’t know,” to some of my questions. After interviewing scores of overly practiced executives throughout the years, meeting him is quite a breath of fresh air.

I arrived at Dyson headquarters in Malmesbury on a crisp winter day, an hour or so away from London in the picturesque Cotswold countryside. The low-slung Dyson headquarters gently rise above the trees, with curving roofs that reflect the rolling fields it sits on. But the roof is not what catches your eyes first.

The first thing you see when you arrive at the main lobby is a British-designed Harrier jump jet.

Instead, you’re taken by the large Harrier jump jet that sits right opposite the main lobby. The jet is real, not a replica. Dyson collects engineering legends like other people collect art; besides the jet, a 1961 Austin Mini — cut in half, inner workings laid bare — greets you at the door. A Bell 47 helicopter from 1946 is parked inside a research lab, and a 1960s English Electric Lightning Jet hangs suspended in mid-air, over the cafe where staff have lunch.

There’s a story of genius behind each item. The Austin Mini, for example, was a break from traditional car design and created by an unusually small team of engineers. The marvels, by dint of their presence, serve as both example and inspiration to Dyson’s employees.

A 1961 Austin Mini – sawn in half, revealing its inner workings – greets you at the door.

Dyson’s first working cyclonic vacuum cleaner doesn’t sit on the parking lot like the Harrier, but it is framed amongst a line of Dyson vacuums in the lobby. When you look at this taped-up contraception that’s obviously been made in someone’s garage, it’s hard to imagine that it subsequently changed the world of consumer electronics. It certainly changed Dyson’s life.

James Dyson struggled for five years to make the world’s cyclone vacuum cleaner work. It took him over 5,126 prototypes before number 5,127 succeeded, in 1984. In the meantime, he had gone into debt, and his wife was growing vegetables and rearing chickens to get enough food to feed the family.

James Dyson’s very first working prototype for a cyclonic vacuum cleaner.

When I ask Dyson what was going through his mind as he was going through failure after failure, he calmly replied, “Research and development is like that. You don’t just have an idea, make a product and it works. You have to go through a lot of trials, a real pilgrim’s progress of ups and downs as you develop your technology.”

But what about the toll on his finances and his family? “As you go deeper and deeper into debt, you have to go on (laughs).” So that was it, it was success or bust. “Yes, of course,” Dyson replies matter-of-factly. “Or lose my house, because I’d signed the house to the bank, and everything.”

But what made you believe so strongly in your idea of a vacuum cleaner that would harness the power of a cyclone? “I’d made products before and made products that worked. And I felt that I could do it. I didn’t know that I could do it, I just hoped that I could do it. And it was a big risk. And it was a very personal risk because I’d lose my house. But now, we still take risks, only they’re the company’s risks.”

They may not look like much, but these motors power each of Dyson’s inventions. They are the beating hearts at the core of every Dyson success.

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