Success scripts: the unwritten rules behind how you work and lead
What is a success script?
success script (n.)
An unwritten rule about what success looks like and how to get there, picked up from family, school and work.
It sounds like this
Why are scripts so hard to question?
It starts as “I should work hard.” Run it long enough and it becomes “I am someone who works hard.” You can argue with a rule. It’s much harder to argue with your identity.
Behaviour
What you do, and what a colleague could see you doing
The script
The rule underneath that makes the behaviour feel like the obvious thing to do
Identity
Who you believe you are, which is where a script ends up if it runs long enough
Where do success scripts come from?
Most are older than the job you’re in now. They come from the places that first showed you what “good” looked like.
Family
What your parents did for work, and what counted as a proper job, set what you saw as normal
School
Gold stars and grades train you to work for approval, and to keep looking for the next box to tick
Your workplace
The first managers who showed you what leadership meant, and the organisations that rewarded some behaviours over others
Culture and history
The Reformation made hard work a virtue. The Industrial Revolution gave it a shape: show up, clock in, produce, retire.
"Anna! Go back - and walk properly."
I was three years old, skipping up to collect my certificate at kindergarten. That was the first time I was told how I was supposed to behave. It wouldn’t be the last.
It was followed by 14 years of red ink in my exercise books: “Good girl, Anna.”
These scripts don’t disappear when you change your job title or your postcode. They come with you.
From my talk at TEDxGosport
How do success scripts show up at work?
You rarely see a script directly. You see what it makes you do. I group them into five areas.
What you pursue
A milestone that feels good for about two seconds before you’re chasing the next one
How you work
Still making decisions alone at 11pm, long after the team could have made them together
How you lead
Handing something over, then taking back the first decision that comes up
How you relate
Saying yes when you’re already at capacity
How you measure
Measuring yourself against the founder with the 8-figure exit
What do success scripts cost leaders, founders and organisations?
A script that fits costs you very little. The cost starts when your context changes and the script keeps running: a new role, a growth spurt, a restructure, AI.
Leaders – capable people at capacity, with no time for the strategic work only they can do
Founders – the story that built the business becomes the thing it can’t grow past
Organisations – teams adapt to how their leader behaves under pressure, so the offsite fades by Monday
You – running on a script instead of a choice, you slowly lose connection, to yourself and to the people in front of you
One founder I worked with had never once let a client down. That reliability was her whole brand. It had also come to mean she personally touched every email, every deliverable and every decision, however small.
The reliability stayed. She just got specific about what really needed her.
How do you rewrite a success script?
Four steps, keeping the parts of the script that still work.
01
Recognise
Spot the gap between what you say matters and how you spend your time.
02
Review
Find the rule behind the behaviour. Where did you learn it? Does it still fit the job you’re doing now?
03
Rewrite
Keep what’s useful and make a deliberate choice about the rest.
04
Rebuild
Bring your habits and your week in line with the new script, so it becomes the default.
What a rewrite sounds like
Sometimes it does. It doesn't require martyrdom.
Maybe. Or maybe there's a different way to get the same results.
You will drop a ball. Far better to decide which one it's going to be.
TRY THISFor a fortnight, write down every decision that came back to you. Mark the ones that needed your judgement. Look hard at the rest.
Questions leaders and HR ask
Are success scripts a bad thing?
No. A success script is neutral. Many scripts are the reason someone got promoted or built a business in the first place. The work is deciding which ones still fit and which need rewriting.
What makes a success script stop working?
A change in context. A new role, a growth spurt, a restructure or merger, or AI can all change what the job needs, while the script keeps running as before.
Why do capable leaders end up at capacity?
Often because a script that served them well is still running. “I have to be across everything” or “If I let go, it’ll fall apart” made sense at an earlier stage. At a bigger scope, the same rule fills the diary and leaves no time for the strategic work only they can do.
Isn't this a delegation problem?
Delegation is one of the places where it shows up. Most leaders know how to delegate. What pulls work back is a belief about their role, often that they have to be the one who solves it because that’s what made them successful. Until that belief is examined, a decision framework tends to hold for a quarter and then slip.
Why didn't our leadership programme or offsite change anything?
Most programmes and offsites work on behaviour. The script driving the behaviour stays untouched, so under real pressure the old pattern returns. Change holds when the script is named out loud, one real structure changes (a meeting, a sign-off), and there’s a check-in a few weeks later.
Do teams and organisations have success scripts too?
Yes. Teams adapt to how their leader behaves under pressure, and organisations reward some behaviours and penalise others until they feel like “how we do things here”. That’s why I usually start with the leader’s own scripts: if they don’t shift, everyone else reorganises around a fixed point.
Is this therapy?
It’s coaching and facilitation about how you work and lead now. We look at where a script came from only as far as it helps you decide whether to keep it.
Isn't this just blaming your parents?
No. Tracing where a script came from is about understanding it, so you can decide whether to keep it. Most scripts stuck because they worked, and there’s nothing to change about the past. What you can change is the script you run today.
What does working with you on this look like?
I work with leaders and founders through one-to-one executive coaching, founder coaching, and talks and workshops for leadership teams and events. Most people start with a conversation.
Where does the idea of success scripts come from?
From my own experience of following one very closely, and from over a decade of working with people who’ve done the same. I studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford, went on to further study in organisational psychology, spent my early career at Procter & Gamble, and have delivered over 1,000 talks and workshops. I’m writing a book on success scripts, out in 2027.
Where does your idea of success really come from?
Want the book when it's out?
Out in 2027
Rewrite Your Success Scripts
Why the beliefs that got you here won't get you where you're going
Join the waitlist and you’ll be first to hear when it’s out. Along the way, I’ll share early chapters, and invite a few people on the list to be interviewed for the book.
Is a script running your team?
I help leaders and founders rewrite the rules about success that keep them too busy to think. Usually it starts after a new role, a growth spurt or a restructure, when what got them here stops working.
If that sounds familiar, let’s talk.