What We Can Learn About Creativity from Wordle

If you’ve spent much time on Twitter or other social media over the last month, you may have encountered posts with little white, yellow, and green boxes with 3/6 or 5/6 noted above it. For the uninitiated, they come from the word game Wordle, a quirky little game where you need to guess the correct word in six tries or less, with hints when you guess a correct letter.

Wordle results have been all over my social media lately, in part because I follow a large number of Word Nerds and/or writerly people who have mostly jumped on the bandwagon with abandon. We love words. We love tinkering with words. The only downside to this game is that there’s only one word a day, which does not adequately provide enough procrastination opportunities.

Earlier this week, I happened to see an article that talked about how Wordle is the creative process in a nutshell — which probably explains why many of the people I know who play are creatives in some shape or fashion. The article made me think about what lessons we can learn from Wordle that can help us understand the creative process and creativity.

First Ideas Are Not Often the Best Ideas

Oh, it’s possible that you might guess the Wordle word of the day on your first guess, particularly if you use the same starting word each day. But, for most people on most days? It takes a few tries to get to the word.

Creativity is similar. Our first ideas are generally not our best ideas or our most creative ideas. To get to those best ideas, we need to think, process, iterate, ponder, and iterate some more. We need the time and space to let our brains connect thoughts and ideas that aren’t on the tips of our tongues, because they are unusual. Great and creative ideas are the ones that take two completely different ideas and bring them together into something new.

Like with Wordle, we generally need time to think about the possibilities and marry that with what is already known. Even if I’m able to figure out two letters on my first try, I still need to be able to imagine how those letters might fit with all of the other possibilities for my next choices. For leaders and creatives, providing space for creativity to happen is important. Finding ways to let creativity percolate is important and will generate better ideas and solutions.

Creativity Has a Process — It Just Looks Different

My guess is that if I rounded up ten creatives that I know who play Wordle, we likely all play it in different ways. We probably all have different starting words (and there are numerous posts and articles out there about which words are best to start with to increase the probability of solving the puzzle in six tries). We probably all have different processes or thought patterns that help us in subsequent guesses.

Despite advice out there to solve for vowels first, I found that this didn’t work for me at all. The amount of possibilities in the consonants throws me off. Start with knocking off the usual consonants and I find the solution more easily. But, here’s the thing, what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for the next person. We all use a creative process, sure, to solve Wordle, but each of our processes is just a little different.

It’s important for creatives, for leaders, and for businesses to recognize those variations in the process. If you only provide a narrow creative process for people to follow, you’re missing out on the creativity produced from varying processes. That doesn’t mean that you can’t have structure, but that there has to be some play in the structure to allow people to get to the solution or result in the way that works best for them.

Creativity Always Involves Risk of Failure

Each day, Wordle solvers have six tries to find the word of the day. Each day, the players risk not solving the puzzle in those six tries. Eventually, there will be failures, days where the pieces just don’t align and where the puzzle isn’t solved.

Creativity is the same. Every creative endeavor involves the risk of failure. Some endeavors may have more risk than others, but to be creative is to invite risk, uncertainty, and doubt into the mix. Without those, great creativity won’t happen. With them, at some point, failure will happen. It’s not if, it’s when.

If you’re not inviting in the risk of failure, creativity will never truly be present. It’s only in the risk of failure that we’re able to tinker our way through the words of creativity, knowing that each choice might lead us astray of the result or solution. To create is to risk.

Creativity Is Both Solitary and Collective

In the virtual world of 2022, there are concerns for some leaders that teams cannot be creative if they are not able to meet face-to-face to brainstorm and collaborate. At the other end of this spectrum is the old stereotype of the solitary artist or writer, completing works alone in some holed off space. The reality is that creativity is both solitary and collective.

Creativity will always be a mixture of solitary thoughts and working things out in our heads with the ability to share and mix with each other. We might complete Wordle on our own, but part of the fun is sharing our results, discussing our strategies, and coming together as a (loose) collective. I’ve joked on more than one occasion that some word choices and the order in which they appear are like a window into another’s brain. I know my people when I see them.

To create in big and bold ways, you need to find both the solitary and the collective aspects. Leave one behind and you miss a vital force in the creative process. Provide the time to think and process, but also time to connect the dots and find inspiration with others.

Creativity Leads to Creativity

Creativity often exists in a loop, where the more creative you are, the more creative you’ll be. Being creative builds creative muscles that help you be more creative. Solving the Wordle puzzle may help us use and build a creative muscle, but it can also inspire us beyond the game.

I’ve seen memes, a photo of a Wordle cross-stitch, discussion of how Wordle could be used for poetry, and a host of other take-offs that move the idea of the game into other creative spaces. And really, that’s often what creativity is: taking something from somewhere and combining it with something else that had nothing to do with the first thing. From that combination, a creative idea or product emerges.

Fostering creativity will help to foster more creativity, whether it’s in your writing world, your team, or your business. It’s important to exercise that muscle and let it lead into unexpected paths.

Wordle isn’t alone in its creativity lessons. Many other games and word puzzles can offer similar lessons and tricks for creativity. Learning to look for them and learn from them benefits our ability to be creative and to lead with creativity. Happy Wordle-ing!