- Pull a false alarm.
“The Boy Who Cried Wolf” is not only an instructive moral fable, it’s a nail-biter. As soon as you learn of the shepherd boy’s plan to get attention by screaming that a wolf is attacking the sheep, you just know a real wolf is bound to show up sooner or later.
You also know that the townspeople won’t like to be made fools of. Nobody does, which is why this technique works, whether in a sleepy town, a Wall Street office or an emergency room.