We All Need Heroes

ICON OF FAILURE

Chapter: Success From Failures

Buschetos Cathedral in Pisa, Italy, is one of its era’s most beautiful buildings. When the church was consecrated by Pope Gelasius II in year 1118 it was greater than both the contemporary St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. The church was Pisa’s pride, and admired by the world. It would probably still be the pride of Pisa, if not due to the act of an unknown architect, who long after Buschetos death built a jerry-building in 1173 and accidentally created an icon that today overshadows the Cathedral – The Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was designed to be perfectly vertical, but due to a lack of architectural skills and poor knowledge of the marsh it was being built on, the clock tower started to lean during construction. While contemporary architects would be sure to carve their name into the wall of their buildings, even today, no one knows who designed the tower. Perhaps the leaders in the city were embarrassed and wiped out all the records of this person.
    It wasn’t until the Romantic period in the early 1800’s that the tower was given its status as an important symbol of the city. A couple of visiting architects started spreading the theory that the tower’s dangerous slope was a deliberate move. The unknown architect had been able to balance the tower on a knife edge, they said. This rumor made many people travel to Pisa to view this “masterpiece” and poets such as Shelley and Byron soon turned Pisa into a famous city. The myth that the leaning tower was designed by a genius architect only lived on for about 20 years, but by then the structure had already been given its status as one of the world’s most famous buildings.
    Many suggestions have been given on how to straighten the Leaning Tower of Pisa, including taking it apart stone by stone and rebuilding it at a different location. In the 1920s the foundations of the tower were injected with cement grouting that has stabilized the tower to some extent. Until recent years tourists were not allowed to climb the staircase inside the tower, due to consolidation work, but the Leaning Tower of Pisa was reopened and is today one of the most popular tourist attractions in Italy.

Possible Moral
The Leaning Tower of Pisa was from the beginning an embarrassing failure, but now millions of people from around the world make pilgrimages to the city every year to view the tower. This brings up the “fake it till you make it” way of thinking. Sometimes this of course backfires, but for the most part, especially in business, pretending to know what you’re doing can take you a long way. It’s okay to admit when there’s things you don’t understand, but mastering that overall vibe of “I know what’s going on” will open doors. The truth is that no one knows everything, but we’re all experts in our own way. Own what you know; fake the rest. The Italian poets faked the story about the tower being a genius architectural piece, and when people found out that the story was a hoax – they pretty much just went along with it.


Story from We All Need Heroes: Stories of the Brave and Foolish.
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