10 Leadership Lessons from Sir Alex Ferguson
Written on Sunday, December 28, 2014 by Rohan Koshy
10 Leadership
Lessons from Sir Alex Ferguson
Sir Alex Ferguson, former manager of
Manchester United football club (hereafter MUFC), is considered by many to be
the greatest manager ever in football (soccer) and even in all of sports. His
towering presence over the game of English football as manager ofMUFC for over
26 years set him apart from other managers, even in the highest echelons of the
sport. Over this tenure he won 13 English premier league titles and two Champions
league trophies (the most celebrated trophy in club football) on the way to a 49-trophy
haul that is unmatched probably across the field of sport.
Clearly, we all have something to learn from
his leadership, his process to deliver success and his legacy. While his domain
was sports, the lessons we can draw apply across dimensions to our life.
We’ve now looked at the playing field so to
speak and its various characteristics. Within the bounds of these external
forces we can now look at Sir Alex’s lessons and look at which ones are useful
in an organizational setting or even to investing.
1.
Let your leadership style flow from your personality
Sir Alex is famous for using the ‘hairdryer’
to motivate players. This means that in the locker room players would often receive
very noisy dressing down if they put in a bad performance. Also his style of
managing was mostly Authoritative. He managed the club and the players with an
iron fist and forged the organization in the image of his own personality -
strong at the top with orders flowing down to the rest of the organization.
Other great leaders with a similar mentality(and thus organizations shaped by
them) were of course Steve Jobs and Jack Welch. However it is crucial to take
away that they built their organizations/teams to be in harmony with their
own personality. Contrast this approach to Warren Buffett’s – decentralized
delegation that flows from his own soft-spoken but results driven personality.
Or take Carlo Ancelotti – another manager in European football who like Sir
Alex has won everything there is to be won but his teams are shaped in his own
quiet but strong and inspiring demeanor.
Key Takeaway – There are many roads to heaven. Make sure
to mold your team to your personality.
2.
Have some simple rules which will guide recurring
success
While success
no doubt requires adapting to changing situations, Sir Alex was famous for
having a set of rules to which he measured his team’s progress. One simple rule
was – Be within touching distance of the leader by the end of December (half
way of the season). This put Manchester United
with the highest probability of winning every season. Case in Point –
Manchester United never finished outside the top three positions ever since
the Premier League was created. Another
rule – ‘Never lose two games in a row’ was legendary for how it prevented a so-called
‘slump’. All these little rules added a lot to team discipline and results.
3.
Manage both for the short term and the long term
It’s easy to
say that everyone should look at the long term. However football, like
organizational success is a results business where short term results matter.
You can’t have six bad quarters of results and have a good three-year outlook.
Sir Alex was famous for making sure that his teams were always competing at the
top end every year no matter which phase or rebuilding/harvesting his team was
in. Like I mentioned in the previous point, not losing two games in a row,
being near the top by December and making sure the team gave its best in the
final 15 minutes meant that the team almost never underperformed in any one
year.
4.
Don’t be afraid to experiment when the environment
allows it
Ferguson’s
teams were famously slow starters. As mentioned earlier, 38 games in the
Premier League (sometimes upto 60 games in all competitions) allowed Ferguson
to experiment. And experiment he did in the opening stages of every season.
Teams lineups and formations would often be changed at the start of the season
to judge both formations and players. However the deadline of being within
touching distance of the leader come December meant that experimentation and
results were kept in balance.
Key
Takeaway - Don’t be afraid the experiment early on, especially when the
operating environment (like 38 different bets in football through the year)
allows you to do so. Keep an open mind to see what is working and what isn’t,
and be comfortable that you may not have all the answers immediately when you
begin.
5.
The numbers show the process of success
‘This is a
results business’ – Sir Alex Ferguson. Clearly, while many of his strategies
involved understanding human motives, abilities and outcomes, the final outcome
was one that always counted in numbers. While bad outcomes sometimes follow
good processes (due to bad luck) good outcomes are a high probability given a good
process. The fact that United never finished outside the top three in the
Premier league is testament to the fact that his process worked. Also
considering how football changed over the two decades and that he built
probably three completely different teams with different attributes reflects
that his process was one that evidently withstood the test of time.
6. Set the bar high - both for your team and your
environment
Ferguson is
famous for the discipline he instilled in the team once he took over. His 7 am
practice sessions inspired others on the coaching staff to themselves show up
before 7 to mimic the boss.“Hard work is a talent” as Sir Alex once said. He also surrounded himself with a great
assistant coach (Carlos Queiroz) and a best in class scouting team. Not only
this but Ferguson also made sure the environment was conducive for success.
Training facilities were upgraded continuously (including installation of high
walls to prevent snooping), criticism of players was never done in public and a
siege ‘Us against them’ mentality was created to foster a great team spirit.
Training sessions matched the intensity of game day. Moreover, anyone who
dropped his standards was swiftly dealt with no matter what the reputation or
previous contribution might have been. Negative influences resulted in swift
departures of hitherto vital team players (Roy Keane, Ruud Van Nistelrooy)
7. Always look ahead three years and dare to rebuild your
team
Ferguson,
although he never really mentions an exact formula always looked at three-year
timelines. He also had a mix of players under the age of 23, 23-28 and 28 and
above. Therefore, he always looked to build teams with players in different
stages of development.
Key
Takeaway – keep your team/portfolio with members/stocks with different
levels of experience/payoffs so that you can simultaneously manage short-term
performance and long-term stability.
When looking
at a team, Ferguson was famous for placing his trust in younger players and
using the United Youth Academy to groom future stars. His teams always had a
core of strong internally chosen candidates. However he never hesitated to
bring in players from outside (like Rio Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney) often
paying record transfer fees if needed to sustain success.
Key
Takeaway – Keep a core internal team (which of course changes over time)
and supplement them with outside players if needed. This applies to letting
team members move on when they don’t fit into the core strategy.
Finally,
Ferguson above all, looked at players who were hungry for success. If he found
players (especially stars) whose effort was waning he would not hesitate to
move them on.
8.
Adapt to survive and never give in
Another
trait that set him apart from other coaches was his ability to adapt to
changing circumstances. While Ferguson wasn’t known to be a tactical master, he
did master how to adapt his team to the changing game of football. When he
initially joined the focus was more on fitness and discipline. However he
adapted to several changes that happened in the game. As sports medicine took
hold he got the best to implement it for United. As stats tracking and
selection by numbers revolutionized the sport, United kept pace. He also
adapted to changes like inflated transfer wages due to the rise of agents.
Finally in a particularly unpopular move, he decided to play youth players in
certain competitions (like the capital one cup) inciting outrage among the
media acknowledging that top teams just couldn’t handle 4 competitions in a
season. Adapt to change even if you’re the best.
Something
relatively unknown about Ferguson is how his playing career affected his
coaching career. He spent 17 relatively unsuccessful seasons as a professional
player. That lack of success defined him.
In his own words - “The adversity gave me a sense of determination that
has shaped my life,” he said. “I made up my mind that I would never give in.”
He also forged Manchester United in this image. His teams were famous for
scoring in the final seconds of the game. They never gave in and as it happened
more and more often teams would psychologically give in as United risked all to
find a goal.
Key
Takeaway– Adversity can shape a person/team and can forge a backbone that
can define the team.
9.
Don’t be afraid to lose but hate it
A
significant temptation for organizations, investors and teams is to play safe
when it comes to the late stages of an outcome. Sir Alex’s teams had the notion
drilled into them that if they were 2-1 down with 5 minutes to go that they
should go all out for a goal. Losing 3-1 was acceptable. This tied in with Sir
Alex’s risk taking philosophy and imbued his teams with an attacking mentality
that though would fail on a one-off basis ensured positive payoffs over the
course of 38 games.
Also, Sir
Alex hates losing. He’s often quoted as saying he’d liked players who were sore
losers. This ‘always need to win’ philosophy meant that team members were
always set with a mentality that only winning was acceptable in a results
business such as football. While this advice may not be valuable in all aspects
of life, it does bear out Ferguson’s observation that hating to lose often made
players work harder than they otherwise would have.
Key
Takeaway
In
organizations- This point dovetails with a multitude of others. Hating losing
means that team members aren’t satisfied with products/services delivered that
aren’t the best in the industry and continue to stay at a high performance
level day after day to deliver recurrent success.
In investing
-Taking unnecessary risks often leads to disaster. However the main takeaway is
that one must also dare to be great (risking failure) in order to stand a
chance to be at the top. This advice is similar that of famed investor Howard
Marks which he detailed in his ‘Dare to be great’ Memo.
10. The edge you have over others is miniscule and so you
must look for every inch to build the edge
Organizations
are finding it harder and harder to keep up with startups. Big firms are
increasingly being split into smaller ones to keep up with change. Investors
find that beating other investors (collectively the index) is an enormously hard
task for the majority. Similarly Football at the highest level is one where no
one has an unassailable lead. Case in point - No team has ever defended the
Champions League title successfully since it was incorporated. All this points
to the fact that at the highest level of sport and business, edges (or moats as
Warren Buffet defines it) are tiny and often temporary. Thus in this
environment the edges generally lies in the tiniest of details.
Sir Alex
displayed cognizance of this with United.
Every chance to gain an edge over rivals was taken no matter how tiny
the payoff. Training facilities were upgraded to the best in the business.
Prospective team players would often find that United would come back season
after season to get their signature. Most famously Sir Alex often persuaded
officials to add ‘Fergie time’ to the end of games often extending games by an
extra minute giving his team a chance.
Key
Takeaway – Leaders in organizations, startups and investors must humbly
recognize that the competition is just as good as we are and that finding the
tiniest of edges is a necessary condition of success. We must continuously look
to build our edge in order to sustain a tiny lead.
In Summary,as
Tony Robbins, the inspirational self-help author and teacher mentions, modeling
the best in a field is often the easiest way to make ourselves better. We don’t
have to always re-invent the wheel. There are many lessons to be modeled from
Sir Alex and his unusually long winning streak at the top of professional
football. These are just few of them but we believe some of the most valuable.
