Chapter 47 - Leading: Learning from Life and My Years at Manchester United
Today’s Chapter is based on the book “Leading: Learning from Life and My Years at Manchester United” by Alex Ferguson with Michael Moritz.
More on Alex Ferguson:
Here’s what I have learned from the book:
Listen & Watch
“I have always felt that wisdom is in the air. Structured learning is fine. But you can pick, you can distil, wisdom by yourself. However, to do that, you have to hone your senses, listen more carefully, smell more deeply, see more sharply, and through that try to distil the wisdom from the air.”
— Robert Kuok
As Alex Ferguson once said, “football management is a study in the frailty of human beings.” As a matter of fact, a keen understanding of people is extremely helpful when you are in a position to lead people. Ferguson explains that “it helps to have a sense of who they [people] are—the circumstances in which they were raised, the actions that will draw out the best in them, and the remarks that will cause them to be spooked.”
Ferguson mentions that “unless you understand people, it’s very hard to motivate them.” By consequence, it is primordial for any successful football manager to have an understanding of each players’ personality. Without it, it is impossible to get the best out of them which is the difference between a good leader and a bad one. As Ferguson once said, “Much of leadership is about extracting that extra 5 per cent of performance that individuals did not know they possessed.”
By consequence, before signing any players, Ferguson would try “to understand the circumstances in which they had been raised. The first ten or 12 years of anyone’s life have such a profound influence on the way they act as adults.”
To do so, Ferguson believes in two essential skills: listening and watching. He believes that God gave humans two ears, two eyes and one mouth for a reason: one must listen and watch twice as much as he talk. To Ferguson, listening and paying attention to others is like “enrolling in a continuous, lifelong free education, with the added benefit that there are no examinations and you can always discard useless comments.”
“Most people don’t use their eyes and ears effectively. They aren’t very observant and they fail to listen intently. As a result, they miss half of what is going on around them.”
— Alex Ferguson
In terms of watching, Ferguson teaches us about the benefits of seeing things through different perspectives and the importance of avoiding confirmation bias.
Firstly, Ferguson explains that there are two forms of observation: “the first is on the detail and the second is on the big picture.” In fact, he once said that “When you are a step removed from the fray, you see things that come as surprises—and it is important to allow yourself to be surprised. If you are in the middle of a training session with a whistle in your mouth, your entire focus is on the ball. When I stepped back and watched from the sidelines, my field of view was widened and I could absorb the whole session, as well as pick up on players’ moods, energy and habits.”
As Shane Parrish once said, “perspective often comes from distance or time. If you’re trying to solve a problem and you’re stuck, try shifting your vantage point.”
Ferguson would also often compared himself to a military general who would analyse the opposing team’s weakness on the sideline:
“One lesson I took from the SAS was the effectiveness of a battle formation, where troops attacking on the flanks create softness in the central defences. I took that lesson right to the training pitch where we worked on it for a week before a Liverpool game. I had players attacking the back post and the front post and then Gary Pallister came from right outside the centre of the box to score. In fact Pallister scored twice using precisely the same ploy. It could have been a re-enactment of a battle plan–except none of the TV commentators picked up on that.”
— Alex Ferguson
Secondly, concerning confirmation bias, Ferguson explains that it is extremely difficult to believe what your eyes tell you. He mentions that “It is astonishing how many biases and preconceived notions we carry around, and these influence what we see, or, more precisely, what we think we see.” As such, while it is essential to listen to what other people have to say, it is even more important to “watch with my own eyes without having my judgement swayed by the filters of others.”
This reminds me of what we have learned from Robert Kuok, the founder of Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts who believed that if one was to become a successful businessman, one must brush up his business’ senses every morning.
In the case of Kuok, upon careful observation, he first started his business around the simple trading of three basic food commodities: rice, sugar and wheat flour. His reasoning was that it was important to focus on products for which there are a large market and for which demand is sustainable. As such, considering basic processed foods such as sugar and flour were the base of any diet, they were great products to do business in.
Furthermore, Kuok got into trading sugar as it was a volatile commodity where he could make tremendous profit due to sugar prices moving up and down like a yo-yo. Once again, he mentions that success in futures trading depends on one’s feel for the market.
Discipline
“Doing boring things for a long period of time is a competitive advantage.”
— Shane Parrish
Alex Ferguson was raised in a family that instilled the importance of discipline and hard work. From a young age, he had the habit of waking up early and of “appearing for work before the milkman arrived.”
He also absorbed from both of his parents the concept that the only way of improving one’s life is to work very hard. In fact, he explains that he was “incapable of coasting and I have always been irritated by people who frittered away natural talents because they were not prepared to put in the hours. There’s a lot of satisfaction that comes from knowing you’re doing your best, and there’s even more that comes when it begins to pay off.”
This importance put into disciple and hard work certainly influenced his approach to football management. As a matter of fact, Ferguson believed that his triumphs at Manchester United were “an expression of the consistent application of discipline. It may surprise some to learn that much of the success comes from not getting carried away or trying to do the impossible and taking too many risks.”
This should reminds us that success often comes from the ability of being consistent for a long period of time. As Shane Parrish once said, “Ninety percent of success can be boiled down to consistently doing the obvious thing for an uncommonly long period of time without convincing yourself that you’re smarter than you are.”
“If you can assemble a team of 11 talented players who concentrate intently during training sessions, take care of their diet and bodies, get enough sleep and show up on time, then you are almost halfway to winning a trophy. It is always astonishing how many clubs are incapable of doing this.”
— Alex Ferguson
This reminds me of what we have learned from Michael Jordan when he said, “commitment cannot be compromised by rewards.” As a matter of fact, Jordan explains that the most challenging thing about keeping a good work ethic is to do it for a long period of time, especially once you have a first taste of success. As Robert Kuok once said, “success often breeds failure, because it makes you arrogant and incautious.”
In Jordan's opinion, this sense of “commitment without compromise” can be seen with just about anyone achieving at a high level; he gives the example of Tiger Woods who was back in the gym by 6:30 to work out the morning after he beat Phil Mickelson at the Ford Championship in 2005.
“Excellence isn't a one-week or one-year ideal. It's a constant. There will be days when you don't feel on top of your game, meetings in which you aren't at your best, but your commitment remains constant. No compromises.”
— Michael Jordan
It is also for this reason that Ferguson was always looking for players who were relentless winners and had the determination of always wanting to improve. He explains that “the very best footballers were competing against themselves to become as good as they could be. It was no accident that players like Ronaldo, Beckham, the Neville brothers, Cantona, Scholes, Giggs and Rooney would all have to be dragged off the training ground. They all just had a built-in desire to excel and improve.”
If he had to choose, Ferguson would much rather fill his team-sheet with 11 men who were good and had great determination and drive over 11 men who had great talent but were short on grit and desire. He reiterates that “if I had to pick drive or talent as the most potent fuel, it would be the former. For me drive means a combination of a willingness to work hard, emotional fortitude, enormous powers of concentration and a refusal to admit defeat.”
“The minute that we don’t work harder than the other team, we’ll not be Manchester United.”
— Alex Ferguson
Of course, in an ideal world, Ferguson would much prefer to have a team full of players such as Cristiano Ronaldo who was not only talented, but also had the dedication and drive to succeed as a football player. Ronaldo had exceptional discipline. While you may see the occasional pictures of Ronaldo enjoying himself, he knew he had to work relentlessly to stay at the top of his game. Ronaldo was also great at shielding himself from the demands of others to concentrate his time in improving his football skills.
Ferguson mentioned that “Cristiano Ronaldo was among the very best. He didn’t drink and he didn’t smoke. When he came to Manchester his mother and his sister lived with him. Every now and again he might appear in a TV advertisement or on a magazine cover or, during the summer break, in a Los Angeles nightclub. But don’t be deceived, Cristiano knew how to manage himself and his time.”
Preparation
“You can’t predict, but you can prepare.”
— Howard Marks
Ferguson mentions in his book that it is impossible to field a good football team without having a great organisation in place. He explains that “Before you can field a great team, you have to build a great organisation, and all the elements have to be assembled properly.“
As such, once he was at Manchester United, his focus was on building a football club rather than building a team. This started by implementing a system that focused on a long-term strategy. Ferguson said that “at United we always had to be thinking about the composition of the team a few seasons ahead. So we had to have a conveyor belt of talent.”
As a matter of fact, Ferguson compared the way he approached young players the same way employees are trained to progress through a large enterprise. He elaborates that at United, “We had distinct layers and a structure, and the road to success was as clear for them as it might be for a graduate from college who joins a company in a trainee scheme and dreams of one day becoming a vice-president, managing director or CEO. At United our layers were the youth academy, the B team, the A team, the reserves and the first-team squad.”
“Every game requires 11 starting players and seven substitutes, and our whole organisation was designed to produce them. I always wanted to know about what the pipeline of players looked like for the team we would select three years in the future.”
— Alex Ferguson
Furthermore, in terms of gameplay, Ferguson also understood the importance of preparation. In fact, he explains that “Part of the pursuit of excellence involves eliminating as many surprises as possible because life is full of the unexpected.“
As such, the most important aspect of the entire Manchester United system was the training: anything that happened during games often occurred during preparation on the training ground. As Ferguson once said, “our training ground was where the real work was done.” And this all starts with the players, they had to take preparation seriously in order for good things to happen.
It is not surprising that the best players on Manchester United were the ones who practiced the most. Ferguson mentions that “David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney would all stay after training to perfect their free kicks. They would not disappear for a long bath, or a massage, or be straight out the door because they had to run down to a car dealership. They would be religious about spending an extra 30 minutes trying to bend balls around a row of mannequins and past the goalkeeper.”
Finally, Ferguson believed that good preparation is the best way to encounter risk. As a matter of fact, he explains that “The way to win battles, wars and games is by attacking and overrunning the opposing side.”, but to do so, one must wait patiently for the opportunities to present themselves.
While Ferguson’s Manchester United teams were well known for scoring late minute equaliser or winner, hence the term “Fergie Time”, he explains that in truth, it all came down “to careful preparation and having a deliberate and thoughtful approach to risk.” He would often ask his players to leave nothing to chance and to wait patiently for opportunities before attacking.
This is eerily similar to the concept of luck as defined by Napoleon Bonaparte. To him, nothing happens by coincidence. It is always the result of one's planning and wisdom. As a matter of fact, Napoleon believes learning sciences and mathematics are the key to mastering your luck. To him, being lucky is the ability to exploit accidents.
Napoleon once said that “A consecutive series of great actions never is the result of chance and luck; it always is the product of planning and genius. Great men are rarely known to fail in their most perilous enterprises. . . . Is it because they are lucky that they become great? No, but being great, they have been able to master luck.”
He reiterates that in the art of war, the difference between success and failure is one’s ability to calculate risks and to act accordingly.
“Military science consists in first calculating all the possibilities accurately and then in making an almost mathematically exact allowance for accident. It is on this point that one must make no mistake; a decimal more or less may alter everything. Now, this apportioning of knowledge and accident can take place only in the head of a genius, for without it there can be no creation-and surely the greatest improvisation of the human mind is that which gives existence to the nonexistent. Accident thus always remains a mystery to mediocre minds and becomes reality for superior men.”
— Napoleon
Business Minded
“But Lee, what am I telling you for? You run a company. It’s the same thing, whether you’re running a ball club or a corporation. After all, does one man build a car all by himself?”
— Vince Lombardi to Lee Iacocca
It is often mentioned that running a sports team is eerily similar to running a corporation. This is also the case in football according to Alex Ferguson. And this is even more true when running a club of the size of Manchester United. As a matter of fact, Ferguson believes that it is extremely important for a football manager to learn how to lead and how to delegate tasks properly.
Ferguson explains that he quickly understood that his role as a manager at Manchester United was not to do everything by himself, but to do things through others. As such, his job as a manager was not to lead, but “to set very high standards. It was to help everyone else believe they could do things that they didn’t think they were capable of. It was to chart a course that had not been pursued before. It was to make everyone understand that the impossible was possible. That’s the difference between leadership and management.”
“As the business of football has grown, so too have the organisations. This has underlined the need for a football manager to delegate more widely and empower those around him.”
— Alex Ferguson
Truthfully, similar to how he would delegate assignments to football players on the playing field, Ferguson had to rely on hiring others with technical background to support him, such as the coaches, the scouts, the medical staff, the sports scientists and the video analysis crew.
When talking about the importance of delegation, Ferguson mentions the story of when he went to meet Jock Stein right before a huge end of season game. Right before kick-off, he asked Stein if he needed to be with his players. Stein responded with “Son, if I’ve got to be with my players for the deciding game of the season, there’s something wrong with them.” All that needed to be delegated to the players had already been prepared and done far in advance.
Furthermore, similar to CEOs of big corporations, football managers are paid to make good decisions. As Naval Ravikant once said, “someone who makes decisions right 80 percent of the time instead of 70 percent of the time will be valued and compensated in the market hundreds of times more.”
And similar to the world of business, in football, you “have to make decisions with the information at your disposal, rather than what you wish you might have. I never had a problem reaching a decision based on imperfect information.” Ferguson believed in making imperfect decisions earlier rather than later as it would allow you with sufficient time to reassess the situation.
This reminds me of what we have learned from Jeff Bezos who believed that most decisions should be made with 70% of the date you wish you had. If you need to wait for more information before making a decision, you are probably being too slow. Furthermore, if these decisions are two-way doors, meaning they are reversible, you will always have the chance to course correct a bad decision.
“If you’re good at course correcting, being wrong may be less costly than you think, whereas being slow is going to be expensive for sure.”
— Jeff Bezos
Also, Ferguson mentions that it is important for a football manager to think and to act like a salesman. As a matter of fact, he explains that as a leader, “he has to sell to the inside of his organisation and to the outside. Anyone who aspires to be a great leader needs to excel at selling his ideas and aspirations to others. Sometimes you have to persuade people to do things they don’t want to do, or to sell them on the idea that they can achieve something they had not dreamed about.”
Similarly, when signing players for the club, Ferguson explains that it is important to think like a salesman and to quickly identify the decision-makers who are in a position of influence. For example, when trying to sign young players, the decision-maker is often not the player himself but their mother. As such, he would always asks his scouts to concentrate on the mothers when trying to convince a player to sign with United.
Finally, just like how we’ve learned that it is dangerous for any corporations to stay complacent, Ferguson believes it is the same for any football club. He mentions that “If you want to build a winning organisation, you have to be prepared to carry on building every day. You never stop building–if you do, you stagnate. I always used to say, ‘The bus is moving; make sure you’re on it, don’t be left behind.’ Manchester United was always a bus on the move.”
Beyond the Book
Read "Galilean Relativity and the Invasion of Scotland" by Farnam Street
Read "Confirmation Bias And the Power of Disconfirming Evidence" by Farnam Street
Read "Reversible and Irreversible Decisions" by Farnam Street