Leadership Lessons Courtesy of The New York Times Spelling Bee
The news in our world is grim and getting more worrisome by the day, it seems. I’m not suggesting we ignore it, but if you need a break, here’s something considerably lighter: Leadership lessons courtesy of the New York Times Spelling Bee.
One insomnia-plagued late night a few years ago, weary and anxious from doomscrolling, I decided to try the Spelling Bee—a simple word-finding game in which you make as many words as you can of at least four letters in length, always using the letter in the center of the 7-letter honeycomb structure. At first it was entertaining. But after a few minutes, I thought, “Does this ever end? How many words are there?” I lost interest and gave up.
But today, I’m hooked, and, thanks to some recent improvements in the game experience and, most importantly, the fun of working on it with another person, we tackle the game every day, and most days—at least 3 out of 4—we reach Queen Bee, finding every word on the list. And lately I’ve realized this game has some lessons to impart for leaders and managers.
1. Set goals and communicate them. Sure, it’s important to know the rules of the game, but even more so to know what you’re aiming for. When I had no idea how many points were possible, or how/when it ever ended, I quickly lost interest. It got better when I realized there were levels (ranks) in the game when you reach certain percentages of possible points in a given puzzle (getting stuck at the oh-so-condescending Nice rank is torturous), but then I got frustrated again when I reached the highest rank—Genius—and the game asked if I wanted to keep playing. Whaaa? What’s better than Genius?
By sheer luck, one day I found all of the words and was rewarded with the Easter egg of Queen Bee! But it felt opaque and mysterious—once you reach Genius rank, how far are you from QB? Five words, 10 words, 40 words? Eventually, a friend who’s way mathier than I (I know, mathier isn’t a real word. The SB wouldn’t take it) figured out that QB was double the points of the rank of Amazing (one step below Genius). It was a huge morale boost to know the goal. From that point on, I was in it to win it. Seeing a finish line in the distance is powerful motivation to keep going. For me, that’s at least as much because of what it says about how far I’ve come as that the end is in sight.
Leaders, your team needs to know more than the rules of engagement. They need to understand what your organization aims to accomplish—and why—and be in it to win it with you. Inspire them with your organization’s purpose and set strategic goals that align with that purpose.
2. Celebrate progress. The SB’s ranks are milestone celebrations of progress. You find a certain percentage of the total points possible, and you advance from Beginner to Good Start, Moving Up, Good, Solid, Nice (blech!), Great, Amazing, and Genius. A simple way to reward effort and determination.
Managers and leaders: Take a tip from the SB and acknowledge small successes and incremental progress toward big goals. And please, remember to thank your team.
3. Encourage collaboration and build diverse teams. I am sure some folks out there will take issue with my working on the SB with someone else. That’s OK. But teaming up with another person has made the game much more enjoyable, and it’s brought us success with the game! It’s supportive and fun (we commiserate and share in mild outrage when Sam Ezersky, the game’s editor, won’t take a word that we know is an actual word, and we laugh at nonsense words we concoct in desperation).
We also bring different ways of playing and different cultural and educational backgrounds to the game. I prefer to stare at the puzzle until I see the pangram (each day’s puzzle has at least one pangram, which uses all seven letters at least once), sometimes for an awfully long time, and then I’ll get to the rest of the list—often losing steam along the way. My game partner, on the other hand, is a word-finding machine, equipped with both speed and endurance. Our different ways of approaching the puzzle complement each other, and the diversity in our vocabularies—the result of so many things, including that we were raised by immigrant parents from different countries, that we grew up in different places, and that we studied different disciplines and pursued different career fields—is a great help. Words that are obscure to me may not be to him, and vice versa.
We tend to each work on the puzzle individually until we reach Genius, and then at some point we’ll swap words, which invariably adds a few to our collective list. Then we push on to the end, reaching the goal together.
Leaders: Your team will thrive when you encourage collaboration over competition. And the more diverse your team—with different perspectives, backgrounds, and skill sets—the better it will be at achieving goals and solving complex, seemingly intractable problems.
4. Build community. I don’t identify as a gamer, and I’m not one to jump into online forums in general. Nevertheless, when I learned that there was a whole community of fellow SBers—known as the Hivemind—I felt a connection I hadn’t before. Honestly, I don’t have to participate in the online forum on the NYT, follow the conversations on Twitter and reddit, or seek out websites that offer analysis and hints to feel a connection to this community. Just knowing they’re out there is comforting and encouraging. It’s also fun to know the SB community lingo (the NYT provides a glossary of terms compiled by a reader—thanks, Monicat!—that includes entries such as BINGO, when all seven letters in the puzzle are used to start at least one word in the list, PERFECT PANGRAM, a pangram that uses each letter only once, and GNP, when you reach the rank of Genius without having found a pangram).
Leaders and managers know—especially after the challenges of the past two years—that organizational culture that values a sense of community is key to a team’s success, as well as to retaining staff and sustaining morale. Community connects, nourishes, and strengthens us as it fosters a sense of belonging and shared mission and values.
5. Help them succeed. One day last fall, a miracle occurred: The tiny yet tantalizing word “more” alongside an arrow to expand a menu appeared in the top right corner of the SB app screen. What was under there? HINTS!!! Life-changing. Now, suddenly I could see how many words were in each day’s puzzle, the total points possible (no need to do our own math!), the number of pangrams, the number of words starting with each letter, and more.
For me, this development—which was also when I learned of the SB forum—was both merciful and affirming. It was as if someone out there (Sam) wanted me to succeed at this! And the hints were just enough to get me there. Some days I don’t look at the hints at all, and I generally steer clear of them until I reach Genius. For me, equipped with the hints, the notion of reaching QB switched from a longshot to something that was truly possible to achieve regularly.
Your staff needs you to help them succeed, too. Make sure they have the information, tools, and resources they need. Connect them to others who can be helpful, who have different ideas or additional information. Leaders and managers: It’s your responsibility to set up your team for success.
6. Ask for feedback—and use it to improve. Sam hears a lot from the Hivemind. A lot. As a result, he routinely adds words to the list of acceptable ones (the word list doesn’t include proper nouns, hyphenated words, profanity/offensive language, or obscure words—though folks would quibble some with that last one. I personally would observe Sam’s love of obscure botanical and biological terms, as well as some ridiculously archaic words). The Hivemind takes to public forums and the email buzzwords@nytimes.com to express themselves. Steve Martin did it on Twitter back in January 2020 to complain about Sam not taking CLICKBAIT. Last month, CLICKBAIT was among three accepted pangrams for a daily puzzle (along with TAILBACK and BACKLIT). Thanks, Steve!
Feedback: ask for it. Take it to heart. Use it to improve.
Some days, the SB is a slog of boring short words or uninteresting suffixes. I delight in finding long words, whether compound or not, and stopping every once in a while to clear my head, stare at the letters, and wait for my brain to see something new. At the bottom of the app screen, between the “delete” and “enter” buttons, is an icon with two arrows forming a circle. Tap it, and it rearranges the letters. And with that, the SB offers a simple, elegant lesson for us all: When you’re stuck on a problem, just try looking at it in a different way.
