Dare to Prepare

WHAT YOU SAY AND HOW YOU SAY IT

Write the Script

What is the greatest movie script ever written? Obviously, there is no single answer. But many screenwriters would cite one of my favorites—Robert Towne’s Chinatown. The script is recognized as a virtuoso performance at the height of what may have been a second golden age of Hollywood artistry. Its script weaves a film noir involving the exposure of a seamy family history into a political and socioeconomic backdrop. The result is a gripping and deliciously sordid story. Then there are the scenes: Jack Nicholson getting his nose sliced; John Huston looking into the bulging eye of a dead fish; the phone ringing and Faye Dunaway’s face showing pure dread.

I see the script for Chinatown as the summation of a rigid preparation of the story by Towne. He deploys just about every major aspect of an actual fraudulent water crisis perpetrated upon California and its voters as the backdrop for a story of a family’s own corruption. The script brings together, about as well as any American screenplay ever has, the personal and the political.

So, movie maniac that I am, I try to emulate the thoroughness but by no means the length of Chinatown when I write my scripts for my business activities. Without great delivery by actors, great lines in a script fall flat. Scripts give me and the people I advise confidence in what we express and how we express it; otherwise, the other side can sense a lack of confidence.

You cannot predict the actual course of legislative testimony, a sales pitch, a steroids investigation, or a board presentation. But you can rehearse the scenarios you anticipate. By thinking through and writing down scripts for the way you think events will unfold, you will have a solid foundation for dealing with the twists and turns of actual events. Frequently when I prepare a script, I bracket scenarios and statements that the script itself may not directly address but that I want to at least have thought about prior to a meeting or presentation. A script can’t address all possibilities, but it can prepare you for most. I also have a colleague review my script and be a devil’s advocate with me to help raise the effectiveness of its content and delivery.

Yes, writing a script takes time, but not as much as you might think, and it will prepare you for something you’ll come across at least 75 percent of the time. Pretty good odds, so no time wasted. I script—write out in shorthand—what I want to express.

People from all sorts of professions—lawyers, CEOs, top doctors—repeatedly shock me. You often come across someone who strikes you as so accomplished and refined when you first meet him that you assume he is the best deal maker or project manager or musician or doctor imaginable. But what is surprising is how many times I see these types of people fail once they have to engage the other side or audience. What they said they were going to do and what they did in the speech or the meeting seemed to change for the worse once they were in the glare of a transaction and felt the other side’s potential resistance.

For example, I have observed people in a negotiation go into a meeting having stated a clear intention to make a tough demand—say, an “ask” of $1 million per year for rights to comarket with their product. Yet when the pressure of a face-to-face negotiation and the fear of potential rejection arises, their conviction starts to waver. What they articulate is “something in the range of $1 million” or between “$750,000 and $1,000,000”—in either case, they have already put themselves below their projected ask.

Public speakers can really benefit from scripting, too. People I know tell me they think I am a good extemporaneous speaker. Secretly I chuckle. While I want people to feel that the presentation—keynote, seminar, toast, or roast—is extemporaneous, the reality is that I have scripted out my presentation, had it reviewed by an associate (my teammate), and have prepared it (though I will not read it). I prepare to come across as extemporaneous. The script preparation process not only helps me build confidence, but also enables me to bone up on or get new insights into issues I may have insufficiently understood. The simple act of writing it down shows what you really know or don’t know. Writing a script helps you confront whether or not you are “BSing.”

I follow this same process in difficult negotiations where I have to make a demand that might make me feel uncomfortable. By scripting out my questions and potential responses from the other person beforehand, I prepare myself to not show discomfort or uncertainty that comes with a “tough ask.”

For example, when you are involved in the give-and-take of a negotiation in professional sports, you sometimes seek huge amounts of money for your clients. And as some superstars hit their late twenties, you have to ask their original team, sometimes one of the less wealthy franchises, to pay an amount that it might struggle to afford. A certain discomfort arises that could undermine your confidence when you make an ask that exceeds what you know will be acceptable to the other side. Practicing with a script before making a proposal can build your confidence level so that the tough ask comes off without a blink or stutter.

Even when the situation is not as intense as a big contract negotiation, scripting what you want to communicate helps you develop a comfort level with expressing the reason for your position on difficult issues. And this can apply to personal interactions like breaking difficult news to a spouse or sibling as much as to business deals.

In most cases, I don’t write a script word for word, but use bullet points and simply try to sketch out the main pieces of my presentation. I use brackets where I sense potential uncertainty so I can try to make an audible change like good quarterbacks change the play at the line of scrimmage. I write phrases like “ask why” or “probe here” in the margins at critical points in the script. Good devil’s advocates will point out those moments by putting themselves in the shoes of your client or counterpart.

Scripting can feel forced or mechanical. But what may start out as a cumbersome exercise can become an especially gratifying one if it involves a good team member. Scripting is the last step on the Preparation Principles Checklist because it is the culmination of all the preparation that you have done.

KIRBY PUCKETT’S SCRIPT

Somewhere at the midpoint of my career—rather late in the game—I fully grasped the importance of scripting. My sports agentry business requires me to make lots of asks, or demands, that are substantially higher than what the other side—team ownership—is willing to accept. Although I sometimes found myself uncomfortable with the process of overasking, I realized that I should question just as vigorously the practice of underoffering by the team.

I wanted to strengthen the expression of that ask. I decided that I needed to overcome my doubts and make more powerful proposals. In sports negotiations there is frequently a major gap that exists between the sides. Aiming high or low, depending on which side you are on, is a part of the process.

In 1992, I scripted the negotiation for Kirby Puckett’s then significant $32 million, five-year contract. To make the high ask that led to it—in order to get comfortable and confident with it—I decided to script out the negotiation with Michael Maas, my partner in the sports firm. Michael proved a perfect devil’s advocate. Just as a good acting coach helps an actor learn and say her lines, Michael and I scripted the negotiation—from content to delivery. We literally conducted rehearsals, or mock debates, and played parts. This collaboration instilled confidence in the initial ask I would make on Kirby’s behalf.

I remember sketching out on a yellow legal pad the rationale for this ask. I prepared myself to deliver to Minnesota Twins general manager Andy McPhail: “Andy, a $36 million contract is entirely reasonable for Kirby in light of the fact that we had every indication from both the Phillies and the Red Sox that they would offer Kirby at least that much. Last summer we were willing to take significantly less, but the club rejected that proposal, and it is only fair that the market help determine the appropriate compensation level for Kirby. We hope that you see the wisdom of making a deal like that to keep him off the market.”

I confidently made my demand, and as a result achieved more than Kirby’s goal. He became one of the highest-paid players in Major League Baseball at the time even though he played on a small-market team.

It is important to remember in negotiations that much is lost for the want of asking. This is based on an old English proverb, and I love it. Much is lost for the want of asking, and much is lost for the want of scripting. And you get more comfortable with asking by scripting.

WHY CAN’T YOU LEARN YOUR LINES?

Scripting can also be fun; you can treat it a bit like a puzzle and later compare how well you put the pieces together.

Yet, of all the preparation principles, I find that clients and students resist this one the most—even more than doing timelines. It does not come naturally. It may feel the most burdensome. That is because people forget to keep it fun. My imagination of movie scenes does this for me.

You may recall that in the introduction to this book I discussed my belief in the idea of professional cross-training. The analogy ran like this: a track star or basketball player can enhance his or her performance by dedicating training time to swimming or biking. Such hybrid training is an acknowledged and much-used technique to take performance to a higher level. Studying how others script can provide the breakthrough you need. I believe that this concept of cross-training applies as a part of preparation for almost any profession.

So whatever your profession, pay special attention to the three profiles in this chapter. Dr. Ray DePaulo, head of the department of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Hospital, uses scripts to prepare for everything from budget presentations to patient communications. Trial lawyer Paul Sandler uses the litigators in his department to be devil’s advocates for the arguments he scripts. Seattle Supersonics general manager Sam Presti makes scripting an integral part of contract and trade talks in order to reduce the pressure of face-to-face negotiations. These three preparers’ benefits are confidence and the nimbleness to adjust to unforeseen events.

THE SCRIPT DOCTOR

Dr. Ray DePaulo

Dr. Ray DePaulo, an expert on the ups and downs of manic depression, is almost manic about scripting. While you wait outside his office door at Johns Hopkins Hospital, you can hear him excitedly talking about the upcoming hospital budget meeting. Ray is the chair of Hopkins’s Department of Psychiatry, one of the best in the world. And, from what you can overhear, it seems that managing the Department of Psychiatry is a lot like managing a division at a company. There are budget battles, turf wars, and personnel struggles.

Ray works his way through it all and finds time to remain a world-class psychiatrist by relying on scripting for most of his encounters and negotiations. One day as Greg and I sat outside his office, we eavesdropped as Ray rehearsed his script. You could hear him pacing the floor; he stops to discuss suggestions from his devil’s advocates; he adjusts his voice’s emphasis like an actor learning his lines.

Ray and members of his faculty of 170 psychiatrists and psychologists script for most major presentations and negotiations, for grant interviews, and even for patient sessions. These highly intelligent people don’t rely on their smarts; they take the time to script. When I feel too rushed to script, I draw inspiration from this crowd. They tend to make you believe in what you teach. They motivate you to script.

“I would say I spend 40 percent of my day preparing,” Ray said. “And of that 40 percent scripting occupies the largest single part of it. It is essential to always go back and script even for a meeting you feel you have already had before or for people you meet with regularly. I like how it makes me feel going into an event; and I like how it makes me look to my colleagues in terms of being prepared.”

Ray was up until 12:30 the night before working on his script for this rehearsal that I listened in on. He is dealing with the threat of the transfer of a small portion of his annual budget—tied to a staff position that overlaps specialties—from his department back to the general budget for the Department of Medicine. It seems to be not so much a turf war as a vestige of the still uncomfortable coexistence between psychiatry and medicine in general.

You can imagine the stakes and the competition for resources at one of the top hospitals in the world that also happens to overlap with one of the top medical schools in the world. Not only do Ray and his department head peers face the normal budgetary tug-of-war that define any such entity; they also are highly competitive achievers at the pinnacle of their game.

“I love treating patients,” Ray said. “But I accept and embrace the administrative stuff because I believe so much in what we are doing here. We need someone who understands the mission to be central to the needed administrative changes. So I try to prepare as thoroughly as I can for business tasks and for negotiations. But you need to harness your motivation with a system. I literally photocopy the preparation principles [Ray had participated in one of our seminars early in his chairmanship] and follow them step-by-step.”

The method is what gives power and effectiveness to Ray’s motivation. For this specific budget negotiation, he has a script on his desk that has Ray’s statements filled in on the following outline:

1. Listen, ask questions, clarify answers; discuss new ideas—short-, intermediate-, and long-term goals of Johns Hopkins Medicine.

a. Short-term

b. Intermediate-term

c. Long-term

2. What does Medicine want that is distinct from our wants, the employees’ wants?

3. Consequence: does the other department know that they are asking to take on a losing budget?

4. Consequences for the School of Medicine if even one of psychiatry’s experts leave for another university: millions of dollars in research grants.

5. Alternatives: ask the hospital to take over the budget for a year, so decision makers will see what money is spent for and who should manage it.

6. Alternatives: support a more ambitious plan to integrate these programs across all Hopkins hospitals and campuses. This would reframe the current focus on psychiatry.

In the first half of his script, Ray is trying to bring everyone at the table to a common ground. Perhaps their collective analysis of short-, intermediate-, and long-term goals will spark the realization of some common ground. And Ray is also studying his counterparts—defining their interests. In this case, the inclusion of it in his script allows Ray to probe their motivations and examine how the issue at hand intersects with their own timeline. This may allow Ray to reposition his argument or propose a temporary solution that takes into account collective long-term goals.

In the second half of his script, Ray compares the other department’s interests with those of his own department. Then he brainstorms ideas or solutions that can be win-wins. His emphasis on consequences is important, too. Sometimes you can point out consequences that affect the other side that they have not even realized. I know for a fact that Ray has done that in this negotiation, and it has significantly influenced the outcome of the negotiation.

“Unless I make myself write out the planner and the script, I never fully probe my situation, let alone the other side’s,” Ray said. “And it becomes a challenge like a competitive game. You can have fun with it.”

The fun for Ray obviously comes when he gets to rehearse. Ray is a people person; he loves to talk and interact. You might expect stuffiness and isolation in the top of academia’s ivory tower. But you have to remember what Ray said earlier—that he wants to be treating patients. Subconsciously or not, he transforms that impulse to want to interact with people into a real strength of his scripting.

“Again, I literally print out a list of the preparation principles and write answers to the questions,” Ray said. “What are my objectives? What are their interests? Whose career are we helping or hurting? Whose budget? What are the short-, intermediate-, and long-term goals? Then I look for precedents—for example, where else do PhDs rather than MDs really run clinical programs? How have they done? What are the management alternatives? What are the deadlines? Then I bring in my crack team—psychiatrists, psychologists, researchers, administrative people—and I tell them to grill me.”

That grilling—as much by e-mail as behind closed doors—is extraordinary. I have seen it. It is like what I imagine the top preparation for a presidential debate must be like. Ray’s people role-play; they ask him questions he had not thought of, they make demands, and they even play-act rudeness and aggression with him. He leaves the room bedraggled but more prepared than the other guy. So many of the preparation principles intersect in Hopkins’s Department of Psychiatry—precedents, pick your team, do a timeline, and so on. But they demonstrate that you can use one principle as the pivot for all the others. In Ray’s case, it is scripting.

And it is especially pleasing to know that he applies scripting to his treatment of patients, too. Ray and his people see some of the most difficult psychiatric cases from around the world. They see the world’s princes and the poorest people from rough neighborhoods in Baltimore. In my role as chair of his advisory board, I was privileged to learn about the inner workings and techniques of psychiatric treatment, and it is one of the joys of my professional career to know that Ray to a large degree incorporates the preparation principles into his most important work: saving and improving lives.

“The biggest challenge we face is when a patient is acutely ill,” Ray said. “This is really a disorder of the brain that makes it hard for a person to reason objectively and accurately. Also depression imposes a real negative bias. So I often start with a template—Hamlet’s soliloquy. To be or not to be. I follow Hamlet’s script but adjust my lines to the case. This is simplistic because there are numerous therapeutic techniques involved but the basic script with tailored lines works. And delivery is important, too. So I rehearse that.”

Ray’s Hamlet speech, however, always ends with a different sort of life-affirming poetry. His preparation with so many patients and even some failures, “losses” as he lamentably calls them, has helped him hone the conclusion of his soliloquy.

“I had a recent session with a woman whom I have been treating for severe depression for fifteen years,” Ray said. “We have not been able to solve the problem, a brain disorder, with medication or therapy. But we have helped her adjust to a reasonably satisfying and functional life. Recently she’s been depressed again, and I brought out a script that I had been rehearsing for a long time for her. I told her that the staff and nurses had for a long time considered her a heroine for living her life in the face of depression. She was moving her life in the correct direction despite carrying a three-hundred-pound gorilla on her shoulders. I told her she is amazing, just remarkable, a person of real value.”

Whether scripting to save jobs in his department or scripting to save the lives of his patients, Ray scripts with a devotion to preparation that can stave off three-hundred-pound gorillas.

REHEARSING YOUR SCRIPT

Paul Sandler

Paul Sandler knows how to play the blues. His harmonica shakes and shines as he blows out an old Muddy Waters tune. Paul is also one of the top trial lawyers in the country who a few years ago won the high-profile Hillary Clinton Hollywood fund-raising case. And when he delivers an opening or closing argument in court, he becomes the same man in motion who plays the harmonica. He loses himself; he moves and gestures like a man from another world.

The key to his success and apparent spontaneity: rehearsing a script and letting others critique his performance as part of his preparation.

Paul is always looking for linkages across everything from his profession to his pastime. And in blues harmonica he sees an apt metaphor for trial lawyering.

“Playing the harmonica or any musical instrument well is all about practicing,” Paul said. “But practicing in the wrong way can do more damage than not practicing at all. You could be practicing in the wrong key and therefore not practicing the correct music even though you think you are. You could be practicing the wrong technique. Like a golfer who keeps swinging and swinging, you are incorporating your mistakes into your performance. You are actually practicing your mistakes.”

That’s why Paul’s harmonica teacher plays devil’s advocate as Paul practices.

Paul has a methodical manner of preparing for his trials, and he has built a reputation on being the best-prepared guy in the courtroom. In his case, scripting involves writing and rehearsing scenarios, and it also involves a level of mental preparation akin to the focus he needs to play the harmonica well.

“Preparation is an indispensable quality for me as a trial lawyer,” Paul said. “One reason I became a trial lawyer is because you don’t have to be brilliant to excel. You just have to be well prepared. I have seen the most articulate lawyers left with unthinkably poor results when their opposing parties were better prepared.”

Paul is a bit of an amateur historian, too, and he particularly loves to use Abraham Lincoln as a role model for being a trial lawyer. Because of his prominence and accomplishments in history, Lincoln’s impressive career as a trial lawyer is sometimes forgotten. Lincoln once remarked that “in order to win in court you need to know the other side’s case better than they do.”

The first step in Paul’s system is debriefing clients and witnesses as thoroughly as possible. As preparation, Paul spends a lot of time putting himself in the shoes and inside the head of the person whom he will be interviewing. This is what great reporters like Liane Hansen (see Chapter 7) do as they get ready to interview people for their stories.

Paul then builds a master chronology of events and backs it up with supporting documents. He writes out the chronology and builds a filing system to match it. He does this for two reasons. First, the preparation informs his ultimate scripting. Second, this kind of tangible layout gives Paul a confidence that you might equate with reading sheet music. He sees the case in front of him; he visualizes it. This preparation turns the facts into the notes that become the substance of his trial performance.

It is also at this point that Paul feels a theme or theory of the case start to cohere.

“The theme is the spinal cord of the case if you will,” Paul said. “It has to focus on the listener. My work is receiver centered. You have to realize in this business, as in most any other, that you are not the most important aspect of the communications cycle. The listener is. The theme has to embrace the listener.”

With this chronology in hand, Paul feels prepared to do what he calls point-counterpoint.

“I need to study the other side’s view and learn their case after I feel I have mastered mine,” Paul said. “This is where Lincoln comes in. This is an evolving process, but you end up discovering different points of view or strategies from the other side and then adjusting your own.”

After Paul has prepared his case and studied the other side, he then turns to the applicable law to superimpose a framework on the case. By now he has his script structured and filled in. He is ready to practice it enough so that it becomes instinctual. Appearing scripted in a courtroom or in a presentation is the last thing an attorney wants. You know when you are doing it—you feel mechanical and self-conscious. Paul makes his presentation seem spontaneous by rehearsing his script with devil’s advocates. Although his case is scripted, it doesn’t appear so because he has rehearsed it so many times with teammates.

He even hires jury consultants to listen to his presentation; he does mock court sessions with other attorneys; he makes his wife suffer through his rehearsals; and when there is no one left, he turns to his loyal dog as his last-standing audience member.

Paul recalls one major case in which he was convinced that a witness had lied before a grand jury about having had an affair with his client. But he knew from his preparation for the case that delving into personal lives could turn off some juries very quickly.

“In a mock trial I decided to see how cross-examining the witness might come across,” Paul said. “My mock jurors reacted very harshly against me when I probed her personal life, and actually doing so in court might have cost me the case.” This sort of scripting with devil’s advocates is less common in legal preparation than one might think. There are some incredibly talented and articulate lawyers, but many of them fall back solely on their brimming self-confidence, which allows master preparers like Paul to sneak in and grab a victory.

Paul also learns from scripting that a compelling fact is not necessarily a pertinent one.

“Every juicy fact does not necessarily advance your theme,” Paul said. “The key is to keep your focus on your theme. Keep advancing it. That is how you keep the key party in the communication interaction, the jury, focused.”

The lesson here transcends trial lawyering. Any presentation or negotiation requires this disciplined approach to maintaining the theme or narrative.

Scripting for Paul is a process of marshalling the facts, developing a theme, rehearsing his presentation with devil’s advocates, and then rehearsing some more. In the balance between preparation and instinct, you can almost see the moment in Paul’s method where preparation blends into action. And yet you will never see him rely on instinct too soon even though he has been winning cases for over thirty years. He keeps preparing today like he did in his early days. In fact, I bet he is as proud of having become a master script writer as an accomplished trial lawyer.

SCRIPTING CHAMPIONSHIP SEASONS

Sam Presti

Sam Presti became assistant general manager of the San Antonio Spurs at the tender age of twenty-eight. Then in 2007, at the age of thirty, he took over the Seattle Supersonics, becoming the youngest general manager in the NBA.

While he was at the Spurs he developed his scripting abilities by collaborating with the team’s legendary general manager, R. C. Buford, as they prepared for contract negotiations with star players such as Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker. The scripts gave the Spurs’ management team the confidence to make strategic offers, reject demands, articulate alternative contract structures, and control the rhythm of a negotiation session. By writing, reviewing, and revising their scripts until the whole management team was satisfied, the Spurs came up with proposals that their designated negotiator could confidently express.

Sam learned old-school preparation from his grandfather, the most prepared person he has ever known. His grandfather’s theory was that if the task or conversation is going to affect other people in any significant way, then you have an obligation to prepare for it in a way that goes beyond your comfort level.

“I think you owe it to your boss or anyone who cuts your check to prepare methodically,” Sam said. “Because the method of scripting is the best way to ensure that you don’t miss anything important or take any missteps, I have to look at it as an obligatory part of performing my job for the people I work for and with.”

That to me is a striking thought. Disregarding whether you think you need to script, you still should do one because it is your obligation as a professional employee. The fact that companies do not make a certain preparation method obligatory is understandable; it may cut off creativity, box someone in, or even lead to mutiny. But it is impressive to me when an employee sees it as his or her obligation to prepare in a certain way. When I know that an employee of mine views preparation in this way, I know I have a winner on my hands.

Sam revises and improves his scripts like a basketball player repeats practicing a seventeen-foot jump shot when his or her comfort range is only fifteen feet.

“I recently read an essay on ‘deliberate practice’,” Sam said, “about enjoying the process, not just a good outcome but also the preparation leading up to it. It keeps you steady if things don’t work out. If your self-validation can come completely out of the preparation process, then you can walk away from a win or a loss and still get satisfaction from your work.”

The most important and practical reason Sam scripts is that it improves his presentations and leads to better agreements for both sides on a project or negotiation.

“My feeling when I first started scripting regularly was that the process was more about understanding the other person’s strategies and points of view than your own,” Sam said. “But the more I did it, the more I realized it was about finding my voice and gaining confidence in my own strategy and presentation. It is really about communicating your message and not getting off track or allowing emotions to trip you up. Scripting ensures clarity of direction but, more importantly, of presentation.”

Here’s a hypothetical scenario that Sam developed to illustrate the value of scripting, especially when it involves the nitty-gritty of contract negotiations.

Let’s say Sam is going to meet with an agent about bringing a player to training camp. Normally the team does not offer compensation in such situations. Sam has found a small amount of funds available to give the player something, but knows he has to start low to manage their expectations. He prepares a script to get comfortable delivering the hard news to the agent, as well as for possible additional scenarios.

“We really would like to have Player X join us in camp. This would be a great opportunity for him to show what he can do and for our coaches to assess his fit with our team.”

[Whether or not agent asks for compensation, add:]

“Based on our prior conversations, I feel good about our providing the kind of on-court opportunity you and X desire. Nevertheless, I can’t offer you a compensation package, but you and X should carefully weigh what this opportunity means for him.”

[If agent does not yield on the compensation point and in fact demands, for example, $100,000, Then:]

“Hypothetically speaking if I can find $15,000 to add to your per diem, will that make a difference?”

[If agent unwilling, then make final move in subsequent phone call:]

“There is something we did once before, which I will try and get approval on if you get agreement from your client. We would raise our offer to $20,000 and if X is still on our roster 12 months from now we will pay him the additional $80,000. Let me know if this will work. If not, it’s best that we both go in a different direction.”

[In a similar case, the agent let Sam know that it would work.]

Sam constructs open-ended questions to probe the agent. He tries to foresee responses beforehand by adding the “if” parentheticals. He reminds himself to not act rashly and wait to make a more aggressive move in a subsequent phone call. He uses hypotheticals and precedents to persuade the agent. You get a sense of how Sam not only rehearses his lines but also leaves room for creative responses. He tries to build his predictions of the agent’s behavior and strategy into the script, too.

Sam’s scripts with the Spurs were collaborations inside an organization that is exemplary in the NBA for its management of the salary cap, identification of talent, and cohesiveness both on the court and in the front office. Sam had some great preparation mentors at the Spurs. I am sure his management team in Seattle will see more scripts than a studio in Hollywood. The scripting upstairs in the offices will match the repetition of the seventeen-foot jumpers that the best-prepared players will be practicing repeatedly on the court.

KEY POINTS

SCRIPT

• A script, properly devil’s advocated, helps maximize the effectiveness of presentations, proposals, and especially “hard asks.”

• When you write and practice your script, you rehearse word choice, tone, use of persuasive precedents, probing, and even silence.

• You can use scripts to flesh out ideas or approaches, discover new strategies or alternatives, or even realize something new about the other side’s interests. Your devil’s advocate helps you see the strengths and weaknesses in your script and helps you build your confidence.

• Ray DePaulo scripts for budget meetings and patient consultations alike: the fact that the head of the Department of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Hospital finds such value in scripting shows the usefulness of scripts in any field.

• Paul Sandler competes against some of the best trial lawyers in the country, and his incessant scripting with devil’s advocates helps him win tough cases because his arguments are so honed and persuasive.

• Sam Presti learned contract negotiations as a member of the legendary San Antonio Spurs front office. Scripting dominates their management culture, and Sam’s use of long, movie-like scripts or even shorthand notes has helped him become a strong negotiator.