My wife loves Wordle and plays every morning, often whilst I am writing this blog. Recently we had a discussion which made me think why Wordle shows how effective you or your organisation will be.
The boss said to me there had been a “really great word”, “one that really taxed her brain”. I said that was strange because there had been a whole load of comments on social media about how unfair the word was because it was hard, and people had struggled or not got it at all, and it had made their results look bad.
Suddenly a lightbulb came on in my brain. Wordle is a metaphor for objectives, just like in life and business.
For many people the objective is the short-term improvement of numbers. Every time they get a word quicker, they win and every time it takes longer, they lose. This means that in order for them to constantly “improve” the words must get easier and easier such that they can get them quicker and quicker and improve their short-term results.
For my wife, and people like her Wordle is a way of effectively achieving their objective, which is not the improvement of short-term results but the long-term maintenance of brain power and the pleasure of continuous learning. Theirs is an objective of continuous improvement. The others have an objective of short-term numerical results. Often It’s The Small Things That Matter
We can all learn from this. If we want to continuously improve our lives and our organisations, we should choose objectives which are long-term or preferably unachievable, but which improve us every day. We should ignore short term numbers which are easily manipulated and look to the long-term objective. Continuous learning cannot be achieved because it is continuous, but it is a great objective. Look forward ten years and see who has gained the most. Those who have taken pride in the short-term dopamine rush of easy answers or those who have built on their knowledge and brain power. It’s the same with business – would you rather be an Apple or a Blackberry?
The trouble is that this often means things need to get harder in the short-term in order to improve in the long-term.
If the objective of Wordle is to help people maintain or improve their minds, then they should ignore the cries of “too hard” and make the words more difficult rather than less. If their objective is to get as many people just playing the game in order to get the numbers up, then they should keep the words really easy. Watch this space. They can’t have both as customers.
If there is anyone from the New York Times Wordle Department reading this, please email me and let me know what is your objective?
In the meantime, what is your objective or that of your organisation? Short term numbers like those demanded by the Stock Exchange and poor leaders and managers or long-term constant improvement like Apple? You decide.
How effective are your objectives?
Thanks to my wife for once again making the so-called complicated things in life really simple.
If you want to receive our regular blogs, please subscribe at Subscribe