Embrace Failure

 Embrace Failure

Do you know James Dyson, the protagonist of the success story who developed the cyclonic vacuum cleaner, generating annual sales of over ￡3 billion despite setbacks in life and business?

"Listen to no one's words. Consumers themselves don't know what they want. You just have to read consumers' habits and offer something that surprises them. You have to lead what you've created to be liked by consumers."

In the past, vacuum cleaners would often stop or lose performance after about 10 minutes of use, as fine dust would get stuck in the paper filter. James Dyson got the idea from observing cyclones in a cattle feed factory and successfully developed the cyclone vacuum cleaner in a cold and humid British suburb in 1992, designing, manufacturing, experimenting, and producing it alone. To protect his patent, he also fought terrible lawsuits in the US and Europe. The key to success, as he says, is to fall in love with the product you want to invent. It's about finding answers on the ground and not giving up. Most of his employees are people who majored in design, etc., at art school. James Dyson is convinced that engineering is not essential for making technical inventions. He says he learned most of the knowledge needed for success from failure. P&G (Procter & Gamble), founded in 1837 by a soap manufacturer and a candle maker, is chosen as a role model for innovation. They developed Ivory soap, a soap that floats in water, in 1879, and during the peak of the Great Depression in 1933, they introduced the first synthetic laundry detergent, Dreft, followed by Tide in 1946, Crest fluoride toothpaste in 1955, the first disposable diaper, Pampers, in 1961, Pert Plus, the first combination shampoo and conditioner, in 1986, and Febreze fabric freshener, Swiffer, and Crest Whitestrips tooth whitening strips, among others. How was P&G able to continue its innovation? Between 1997 and 2007, more than half of the 26 companies listed in the Fortune 500 after 1984 increased their market capitalization through business model innovation. In a survey conducted by IBM in 2008, almost all of the 1,100 participating CEOs said there was a need to revise their business models, and more than two-thirds said that radical change was necessary. However, they hardly knew how to do it, and most of them failed. Mark W. Johnson talks about the commonality of innovation in "Where Good Ideas Come From." Harvard Business School's Professor Levitt famously said, "People go to the hardware store not to buy a drill, but to make a hole."

First, you need to observe and define what customers need. Second, strengthen the company's core resources/processes. Third, create a profit formula.

This is like Tata Motors, a famous Indian car maker, creating a $2,000 car that is safer for Indians who ride motorcycles, can escape rain even on rainy days, and is very cheap. Amazon would have failed if it had stuck only to online book sales. They also entered the miscellaneous goods market and ventured into the used book trade, which eventually led to the success of the Kindle e-reader. Mark W. Johnson emphasizes the three rules above, but I have a different opinion. The qualities of the company's leader, leadership, are more important. Under the company leader's vision, they should provide a pleasant workplace atmosphere to employees and create a culture where creativity and failure are enjoyable. In 1977, Warner-Chilcott, a US pharmaceutical company, discovered that when pregnant women's urine was injected into rabbits, the rabbits' ovaries swelled due to the hCG hormone, leading to the development of a kit that can easily measure pregnancy at home. The important thing in this story is how employees came up with the idea of injecting urine into rabbit veins and why they observed subtle changes in the ovaries. The story of Ivory soap, which was the cornerstone of P&G's growth, is also a story of a mistake made by a researcher who accidentally put soap in a mixer. DuPont's story of developing Teflon while trying to develop a substitute for Freon gas is also a story of a mistake. Have dreams and passion, and enjoy your work. That's all there is to it. In a world where nothing is impossible, what is it that can't be done?