Every day millions of people around the world try to guess a five letter word in six attempts. There’s even a new collective noun to describe them - wordlers. The game was invented by Josh Wardle to amuse his partner. The simplicity of the game soon attracted a legion of followers; it was acquired by the New York Times and is free to play.
There are a number of skills required to play Wordle successfully and surprisingly negotiators and wordlers have lots in common.
They have a plan:
Many wordlers start with the same word each day. They (like my partner) choose a word such as adieu, which contains four of the five vowels. Others take a random guess which occasionally fast-tracks their result. More often, as in negotiations, the latter is less successful than a more structured approach.
As you are probably aware, if the player chooses the correct letter in the correct place, it shows a green square on the answer. If the letter’s correct, but in the wrong place, it shows yellow. The first attempt informs each person’s following attempts.
Skilled negotiators have a plan and follow a process. If they make a proposal and it’s rejected, they ask questions to find out which aspects were rejected and which were acceptable. Their next proposal is designed to build on the information gleaned from the first rejection.
Working towards an agreement is an iterative process, with each proposal building on the previous one.
They make assumptions:
Wordlers make an assumption about the likely correct answer in each attempt. If one letter is identified as a C then the letter that comes after it may well be an H. If the final letter is a G, then the letters before it may well be IN. These assumptions are tested in subsequent attempts.
Negotiators make many assumptions about the other party prior to the commencement of the negotiation. These assumptions may include their issues, objectives, priorities and constraints or inhibitions. These assumptions are also then rigorously checked by asking questions and listening intently to any signals of flexibility evident in the answers.
They Learn from their Mistakes
Often a wordler’s first attempt ends with no success at all, yet they do not regard this as a failure because they have eliminated five potential answers and they have learned where to go next. Each time they fail to identify the word, they learn something more about how success might look.
Each attempt by a wordler should be a considered one, informed by what has come before, building on successes and eliminating the causes of failure.
Feedback:
Wordlers receive instant feedback from the website: (eg. excellent, impressive) depending on the number of attempts they take to identify the correct answer.
Similarly a skilled negotiator relies on feedback from their counterparty in the form of responses to proposals and the answer to questions. They will also receive feedback from their team during the course of the negotiation.
Skilled negotiators and wordlers are constantly learning from this feedback in order to increase their chances of a successful outcome.