Alex Ferguson's Lessons on Leading
NEW BOOK: Sir Alex Ferguson, who will teach in Harvard Business School's
Executive Education program next year, may be the most successful professional
sports coach of all time. He discusses his management style at Manchester
United, and why building a team is less important than building a foundation. PLUS: Book excerpt from Leading.
The Difference Between
Managing and Leading
Interview by Sean
Silverthorne
From 1986 until his
retirement in 2013, Sir Alex Ferguson, the manager of the Manchester
United football team in the United Kingdom, was the most famous (and arguably
the most successful) coach in the world. Under Ferguson, United captured 13
titles in the English Premier League and two victories in the UEFA Champions
League, the second biggest competition outside the World Cup. Overall, he
is the most successful manager in the history of British football, winning 49
trophies in 39 years.
In his new book, Leading: Learning from Life and My Years at Manchester United, co-written with Sir Michael Moritz, Ferguson discusses his formulas for success on and off the field. In the
spring he will join the Harvard Business School Executive Education program as part of a long-term teaching position.
Ferguson, 73, has been the subject of a case study by Professor Anita Elberse, and in 2012 she hosted him in class when she taught the case
to HBS MBA students. “With Harvard being such a great brand, and people from
all over the world and different nationalities there, I look forward to being
with them and the faculty,” Ferguson says.
We talked to Sir Alex
recently as he began his book tour in the United States.
Sean
Silverthorne: One thing students are
taught at HBS is to have a bias for action. Take a stand and make a decision.
Was that your belief as well?
Sir
Alex Ferguson: Absolutely. I never
spent much time looking back at a win or in defeat. It never did me any good
looking back. It’s always on to the next day and the next challenge. Things
would affect my players and you have got to bring them back to earth. "We
have a big game next week, let’s start working for that one."
For company leaders
this [approach] develops a character and a belief in your people that you are
winning. I found that was my biggest task as a manager, to get in position to
prove to them from the start what’s possible.
Q: Your organizational philosophy was built
around identifying and grooming young talent so that you always had a pipeline
of next-generation stars ready to take over. If you were building a team
today—a sports team or a business team—what qualities would you look for?
A: I’m looking for someone with enthusiasm, and
who has determination to do well. People who have a desire to do well, will do
well; they won’t lie down. When I interviewed people to be a staff member or
one of my coaches, I would arrive and see how they were sitting. Were they
sitting up … eager to start?
Also, you look for
someone who can be a team member. They can adapt to playing on a team,
recognizing the weaknesses and strengths of their team that day. Sometimes a
team member is not (playing well) and you have to carry them.
Q: Work ethic is particularly important in the
organizations you led, both on behalf of the players and yourself.
A: I’ve always felt the most important thing to
success was work ethic. The most talented people can be disappointing if they
don’t have a work ethic about them. I was very fortunate; most of my very
talented players also had a work ethic—and that made them really great players.
You don’t have as many players coming from working class backgrounds now. Most
come from an upper class—maybe the father or grandfathers were middle class or
working class. That was a big challenge for me. To make sure they understood
why work ethic is so important.
Q: Someone with a strong work ethic rubs off on
colleagues, especially in sports. We talk about players who make everyone
around them better.
A: Players like (Ryan) Giggs and (Cristiano)
Ronaldo were working so hard that the other fellows had to take themselves and
say, "Now wait a minute, if he can do it, I’ve got to do
it." And more so that these other players on the team had great
character with great desire to win the match. Maybe they didn’t have the talent
of Ronaldo or Giggs or (Paul) Scholes or (Eric) Cantona, but the desire to be
the best made them really important players. So I think examples are set by
wanting to be a winner.
Q: Can athletes be taught to be great players or
is that something they are born with?
A: The really talented players I think are born
great. When I first saw Giggs, I said, well, if he can’t make it, I don’t know
anyone who can make it. He was such a talented boy, he glided over the pitch
like a cocker spaniel chasing a piece of silver paper. The same thing when
Ronaldo joined us. You knew he was going to be the best player in the world.
The talent was there. These ones are born with it. But, in general, I think
most are self-made by their own intensity, by their own work ethic.
Q: What about leaders? Can they be made, or are
leaders born?
A: Some leaders are born to be that. Think about
Nelson Mandela, who I met a few times. Maybe because he spent quite a number of
years in jail thinking about what he was going to do and how he was going
to change the country. But you have to think, back when he was opposing
authority as a young person, he was destined to be great. There were those
leadership qualities lying dormant in the prison.
I do think I was born
with something, but a lot of things were learned as I went along. Recognition,
communication, organization, I think these were things I picked up.
Q: Many sports managers in America talk about
having a “shelf-life” with players, after which players just tune out the
coach. I’m sure some organizational managers feel the same way. How did you
keep players listening to you year after year?
A: In my discussions with the team and coaches, I
used my imagination a lot. Because they don’t want to hear the same message all
the time. They don’t want to keep hearing the same voice all the time. For
instance, I remember going to watch (opera singer) Andrea Bocelli, and I was
absolutely captured by the orchestra. The next day I went in and spoke to the
players about the rhythm, the tempo, the control that the conductor had over
the orchestra. I told them this reflects exactly what team-work is about.
Q: Managers often have to look ahead as well as
manage day-to-day. How did you balance in-game management with the longer-term
needs of the club?
A: My approach going to Manchester United was
this: I believe in building the foundation. I believe in the football club. The
team is not the most important thing, it’s the foundation that comes first. The
pipeline with the stream of talent coming through in a continuous way. That was
what I was attempting to do. Short-term [strategy,] I don’t need one. I think
people with a long-term view who invest in youth, invest in the future, have
far more success. I never deviated from who I was; I was the same person then
as I was 26 years later. Because I had longevity, I was always able to think
for years ahead.
Q: What is the difference between leading and
managing?
A: I think leading is about inspiration and
getting everyone to trust in their sports ability, that they can achieve what
they never thought they could achieve. That’s the great difference, and I think
that’s where leadership comes in. Use your personality and conviction to
transmit to everyone that we are on the right path. That is the difference between
leading and managing. But it’s very hard to motivate people unless you
understand them.
Q: It’s also about setting high standards, isn’t
it?
A: Oh, absolutely. We were successful because
every player was geared toward what happened on Saturday. Building training
intensity, concentration, and consistency normally led to consistent
results. I’m always the first into work. I was in there at a quarter to seven
every morning. I was able to discuss who was injured, when was the training
table coming by, long before anyone else was in the building. When I started
continually coming in at that time, then all of a sudden other people started
to come in at the same time as me.
There is an
interesting story about Jean-Claude Biver, who runs Hublot watches. As a young
man he went for an interview at Omega, and the interview was set for five
o’clock in the morning. After it was over, Biver asked, "Why an interview
at five in the morning? [The interviewer] said, ‘Because I’m three hours ahead
of everyone, I’m working while you sleep." That’s an example of the way I
did the job.
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/alex-ferguson-s-lessons-on-leading?cid=spmailing-12417990-WK%20Newsletter%2011-12-2015%20(1)-November%2012,%202015
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