Legendary former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has revealed the methods and mentality that saw him win 28 major trophies in 26 years in charge.
The Scot permitted professors from Harvard Business School to observe and study his methods during his final season at Old Trafford as part of a case study, upon which he has since expanded to students in visits to the institution after his retirement.
In a wide-ranging interview published in full in the Harvard Business Review, Sir Alex explained that his first move upon joining the Red Devils was to establish his famed focus on youth.
from the moment I got to Manchester United, I thought of only one thing:
building a football club. I wanted to build right from the bottom," he
began.
"I knew that a focus on youth would fit the club's history
and my earlier coaching experience told me that winning with young
players could be done and that I was good at working with them. So I had
the confidence and conviction that, if United was going to mean
anything again, rebuilding the youth structure was crucial. You could
say it was brave but fortune favours the brave.
"At some clubs, you need only to lose three games in a row and you're fired. In today's football world,
with a new breed of directors and owners, I am not sure any club would
have the patience to wait for a manager to build a team over a four-year
period "Winning a game is only a short-term gain - you can lose the next game. Building a club brings stability and consistency.
"One
of the things I've done well over the years is manage change. I believe
that you control change by accepting it. That also means having
confidence in the people you hire. The minute staff members are
employed, you have to trust that they are doing their jobs. If you
micromanage and tell people what to do, there is no point in hiring
them.
"The most important thing is to not stagnate. I said to
David Gill a few years ago: 'The only way we can keep players at
Manchester United is if we have the best training ground in Europe.'
That is when we kickstarted the medical centre. We can't sit still.
"Most
people with my kind of track record don't look to change but I always
felt I couldn't afford not to change. We had to be successful - there
was no other option for me - and I would explore any means of improving.
I continued to work hard. I treated every success as my first. My job
was to give us the best possible chance of winning. That is what drove
me."
