One of my most vivid memories from college is of huddling under the sheets of my twin bed, flashlight in hand, doing crossword puzzles while my roommate snored four feet away.
I’ve always been fascinated by the art of the crossword: a skill as much math as it is magic, as much science as it is art. To construct a good puzzle requires a deep and well-rounded set of knowledge, a spatial fluency, and a certain kind of empathy, or at least other-awareness: constructing clues that not just you but anyone could figure out, if given the time, or, better yet, clues that not everyone could figure out, but would say “ah-HA” when the solution is revealed. There’s an art of the Pygmalion in puzzle construction and that’s what, to a growth-oriented individual, makes puzzles so addictive.
I’ve been a solver for most of my life, and crosswords have been one of few constants in a life marked with change. They’ve become, bizarrely, a lens through which I see the world.
When I started my marketing career almost 20 years ago (!), I did so without intention — by accident, really, and more on that later — but learned over the ensuing decades a lot about business. I learned how to acquire customers and keep them coming back. I learned how to spend millions of dollars responsibly, and how to tell a story with numbers. What I noticed, though, was that the business world was rife with problems. “New user growth rates are in decline.” “It’s difficult to fix a leaky bucket, and we’ve got one.” “We’re at risk of breaching our debt covenant.” “We’ve got a morale issue.” “Our new accounting process is such a drag.”
Pretty much everywhere you looked, you could find a problem of some size. And with it, a set of negative discourse, a shared sense of frustration or even despair, and — in the worst cases — an avoidance of the “problem” at hand.
I observed that the highest performing teams found a way to tackle the problems directly, and with positivity and belief in an eventual, and multi-faceted, solution. I found myself drawn to this type of problem-solving: positive, energetic, and with a dogged belief in an answer — oftentimes a complex one requiring multiple dynamics to shift. A type of problem-solving, I realized, that wasn’t actually about the problem at all.
My career trajectory spiked when I began to see, and approach, challenges not as problems but as puzzles. As intricately constructed systems with dynamics that are both math and magic, science and art. As means to an end that merely require a bit more critical thinking and optimism than when things are “going smoothly” (whatever that means).
And I love a good puzzle.
Starting this Substack is me setting aside a space to muse on all things marketing, growth, management, and leadership through the lens of puzzle-solving. Of sharing observations and lessons learned about sticky, new, or interesting puzzles I’ve encountered, and hearing from you along the way.
Stay tuned for more.