A Coaching Lesson from Spelling Bee

I conjured a life and coaching lesson in the Spelling Bee last week.

I'm pretty sure other Spelling Bee'ers (what SHOULD we be called?) have had this experience. I worked the puzzle and got to the point where I felt that I had gone as far as I could go in trying to find words. I came back to it several times during the day, but I couldn't find any more words. Of course, I knew there were words left to find because I hadn't reached Queen Bee status, but I started to tell myself things like, "Oh, they are probably those obscure words that Sam throws in." Or "there must be a bunch of really unusual words today." I could actually hear those thoughts rattling around in my head.

Spelling Bee'ers now have easy access to a hints page, so I went there. I try my best to wait until I reach Genius and that is what I did that day. I clicked on the hints page and saw that there was a 9-letter word beginning with D. I glanced at the puzzle and immediately saw it!

Notice that the clue wasn't some description of the object or action; it merely spotted me the first letter and the length AND the confirmation that such a word existed in the puzzle.

As a leader and a coach, I know that some of the most significant obstacles that we face are within us (our filters, biases, preconceived notions, prior learning, schema, self-deprecating and limiting thoughts and beliefs). These block us from seeing possibilities and answers to problems and challenges that exist in our work milieu but are outside of our immediate perception. What my Spelling Bee experience reminds me is that to get to a possible answer to a thorny issue, we don't need to have the full-blown answer arrive fully formed in our mind, we may just need to see a glimpse and have the belief--the knowledge--that it exists.

Recognizing our own internal obstacles is an important step to creatively addressing the myriad challenges that exist in our world.