Scripting for Success

Planning is perhaps as old as civilization. A lot of us have short and long-term plans. Pretty much every businesses makes them. Governments too.

Marketers and PR pros are especially fond of planning. Advertising agencies plot out campaigns six months before they see the light of day. I am often called into helping teams craft PR plans for 2008 as early as a year before these strategies are implemented.

The challenge here, however, is that the pace of change is accelerating thanks to the Internet, globalization, fickle audiences and other forces. This can wreak havoc with even the best plans. This holds true for your personal workday as well.

There is a happy medium in between executing a plan and just winging it. It's called "scripting" and I have been experimenting with lately. It works on many different levels - macro for business, micro for individuals. (Coders, this is a different meaning of the word than what you're familiar with, but it's related.)

Scripting was pioneered by legendary San Francisco 49er's coach Bill Walsh during the team's Super Bowl streak in the 1980s. It's now utilized by many NFL coaches who run the West Coast Offense.

Rather than plot out the offensive plan for an entire game game, these men "script" out just the first 15 plays - and then they stick with them no matter what. It's grown more complex too as coaches prepare themselves for different situations.

At its purest, scripting helps teams know their initial plays inside and out. This minimizes mistakes, establishes momentum and dictates the flow of the game. It also gives the coaching staff an opportunity to run "test plays" that are designed to generate a reaction from the competition - e.g. the defense. They observe their opponent's tendencies - and then exploit them.

Football of course isn't business. However, there are parallels. I am not advocating the abolishment of planning. It certainly has its place. Still, nimbleness matters today and by scripting, learning and adapting, you can succeed more quickly.

Marissa Mayer, without mentioning it, talks about scripting in this Fortune interview. I suspect it plays a role in many successful leaders' workdays. I remember reading years ago about how Rich Tong scripted his workday in Julie Bick's excellent book on Microsoft.

Here's a look at scripting in action. Say you want to convince some bloggers you have a relationship with (this point is key) to consider certain product to review. If you script out the first 15 bloggers you plan to approach and your methodology, you can utilize some of the key learnings to move forward from there in a more productive way.

The same applies day to day in the workplace. Each night I now script out the first five things I will do when I get to the office. If I don't have meetings, I run the script. If I do have meetings, I make them part of my script.

This creates discipline and helps me follow GTD. It means that I firewall my attention and do not look at email or feeds until a certain time I have it scheduled on my calendar. It's in the script. This is a trick I learned from Tim Ferriss. He calls it batching. Combine batching and scripting and you got something powerful. Further, I can adapt my script to any situation. And I learn from it too.

Is this for everyone? Perhaps not. There are ways to improve it too beyond just porting an idea from sports over to business. Give it a go and let me know how you do.

Comments

[Scott Baradell]

2008? Crap, I'm currently working on my plans for May 29.

[Steve Rubel]

Dude, you're scripting!

[Bob Walsh]

Great technique Steve - with the advantage that by rehearsing the script the day before you visualize success. Firewalling your attention until you complete the script keeps you in charge of it.

[Bart Caylor]

I like the idea of adding this to your GTD regiment: Focus. Mind like water. Good stuff.

[smithee]

This an interesting to do list variation. Any examples out there of what a 'script' looks like?

[Manny]

This concept beautifully reflects the notion that innovations continue to occur in goal-setting/life-planning field. For many years, as a serious reader/practitioner of setting goals, planning my time, etc, I was confused by the dictum: “just write out everything you need to achieve your goal, and then do those things”. Clearly…if you knew everything you needed to do, you’d virtually BE at your goal. But life, and the achievement of larger time-frame, multi-step goals, isn’t so cut-and-dried. Scripting reminds me of my previous career composing music for TV commercials: creation (and goal-achievement) is an iterative process: it adjusts and focuses based on the information generated during the process itself. In a sense it’s “evolutionary” rather than “classical physics”.