Welcome to UW-MANIAC!

What is UW-MANIAC? UW-MANIAC (Madison Area Network for Innovation & Collaboration) represents a network of continued collaborative learning and growth. This unique partnership includes a diverse group of UW-Madison departments and academic perspectives, as well as those from the private and non-profit sector. We host several events a year around a wide variety of topics, including the “Innovation and Collaboration Learning Café Series," a creative learning space that teaches creativity tools in an applied manner, a "Breakfast Series" in which members share inspiring ideas and creative approaches to work, and other opportunities to meet and share ideas, both through face-to-face conversation and virtual dialogue. Feel free to utilize this online community to share reflections, ask questions, incubate an idea, and re-connect with those friendly faces from the other events. For additional information, please contact Harry Webne-Behrman, UW Office of Human Resource Development, at 608-262-9934 or hwebnebehrman@ohr.wisc.edu.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

The Power of Failure

In his recent article in The New Yorker, "The Gift of Doubt: Albert O. Hirschman and the Power of Failure," Malcolm Gladwell highlights a very maniacal topic--the benefits of failure.  Many of you may recognize this topic from a breakfast that MANIAC put on in January.  This breakfast, Embracing Failure, taught us how to think of failure in a different way and to explore the benefits and opportunities that it offers us.  Gladwell uses different examples to illustrate this same idea in his article. 

Gladwell starts the article by telling the story of a railway work project from the mid-nineteenth century.  The project consisted of adding an addition to a railway line connecting Boston to the Hudson River.  Engineers estimated that the project would be cheap and relatively easy--they were wrong.  The project was much more expensive and challenging than originally thought, but it was still completed.  Despite the railway project turning into a nightmare, Gladwell talks about how this project ended up being a glowing success in many ways.  If the engineers would've known the challenges that they faced by taking on the railway addition, they never would've done it.  But the addition ended up being crucial to the Massachusetts economy and the expanding West.  This story highlights how important failure is and how it can lead to something wonderful.  It also highlights another theme--people naturally shy away from tasks and projects that they know will be difficult, but sometimes the most challenging ventures end up being the most important!

Gladwell goes on to focus more on Albert Hirschman.  He discusses a biography of Hirschman written by Jeremy Adelman titled, "Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman."  Gladwell writes about Hirschman's beginnings and how he came to be one of the world's most influential economists and philosophical thinkers.  This article is a fantastic read for any MANIACs who want to learn more about the power of failure or who are interested in learning more about the life of Albert Hirschman!

Check out Gladwell's article here: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2013/06/24/130624crbo_books_gladwell?currentPage=1
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1 comment:

  1. PlacecraftingOctober 28, 2013 at 11:05 AM

    Thanks, Harry, I'll look forward to reading Gladwell's piece.

    What we learned at the "Embracing Failure" workshop continues to resonate for me and my co-facilitators, Marian Farrior and Nancy Mitchell, as well as for a number of the people who shared that morning with us.

    I've found myself continuing to draw on the taxonomy of failure resilience that I developed for the workshop; it's become part of my framework for processing my experience of the world.

    --Maya Lea

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