Sir Alex Ferguson Reveals Eight Secrets of Success in Managing Teams

If you had a chance to interview him, what would you ask the man who many regard as the best coach in the history of European football, and perhaps sports as a whole? I can imagine many fans have pondered that question, but last year it took on greater relevance for me.

That's because in what turned out to be Sir Alex Ferguson's last eighteen months in charge at Manchester United, my former student Tom Dye and I had a unique opportunity to study the legendary coach's leadership approach. We were able to conduct lengthy interviews with the man himself, we followed him around as he went about his daily activities on United's training ground, we saw him in action at the stadium, we interviewed several players, and we spoke with many people around him, from the club's kit manager to the chief executive officer. Not your average academic research project, in other words.

We captured some of our initial findings in a case study, released last fall (see here and here and here for some media coverage). Today, the Harvard Business Review published a second result of the study: an article, titled "Ferguson's Formula" and co-authored with Sir Alex, in which he provides his perspective on eight critical leadership lessons, offering unique insights into what it takes to build and manage teams.

I obviously can't reproduce the full article here -- it is available through the Harvard Business Review 's website -- but I thought it might be helpful to list the lessons, and for each lesson select one quote that I found especially insightful. Here we go:

Lesson 1. Start with the Foundation
"When you give young people a chance, you not only create a longer life span for the team, you also create loyalty. They will always remember that you were the manager who gave them their first opportunity."

Lesson 2. Dare to Rebuild Your Team
"The hardest thing is to let go of a player who has been a great guy -- but all the evidence is on the field. If you see the change, the deterioration, you have to ask yourself what things are going to be like two years ahead."

Lesson 3. Set High Standards -- and Hold Everyone To Them
"I constantly told my squad that working hard all your life is a talent. But I expected even more from the star players. I expected them to work even harder."

Lesson 4. Never, Ever Cede Control
"There are occasions when you have to ask yourself whether certain players are affecting the dressing-room atmosphere, the performance of the team, and your control of the players and the staff. If they are, you have to cut the cord."

Lesson 5. Match the Message to the Moment
"For a player -- for any human being -- there is nothing better than hearing 'Well done.' Those are the two best words ever invented."

Lesson 6. Prepare to Win
"I am a gambler—a risk taker—and you can see that in how we played in the late stages of matches. ... If we were still down—say, 1–2—with 15 minutes to go, I was ready to take more risks. I was perfectly happy to lose 1–3 if it meant we’d given ourselves a good chance to draw or to win. So in those last 15 minutes, we’d go for it."

Lesson 7. Rely on the Power of Observation
"I came to see observation as a critical part of my management skills. The ability to see things is key -- or, more specifically, the ability to see things you don't expect to see."

Lesson 8. Never Stop Adapting
"Most people with my kind of track record don't look to change. But I always felt I couldn't afford not to change."

Anita Elberse is the Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. She is the author of a book, Blockbusters: Hit-making, Risk-taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment, (in stores next month but available to pre-order now), and faculty chair of an HBS Executive Education program, “The Business of Entertainment, Media, and Sports.”