Sir Alex Ferguson is the Steve Jobs of the sporting world.

The brilliant, ruthless and controversial manager transformed England’s Manchester United from a mediocre soccer team into the world’s most valuable sports club, and the one everyone else wanted to beat. He kept the team on top over an astonishing quarter century and racked up a record number of trophies.

And now Ferguson, who retired two years ago, has published his thoughts on what he’s learned about leadership, management and success in a book, “Leading,” co-written with Sequoia Capital’s Sir Michael Moritz.


It says a lot about British snobbery and mediocrity that many people in the U.K. are apparently smirking about the presumption of a working-class, “mere” soccer manager writing about leadership lessons. (Ferguson’s even been invited to give lectures at Harvard Business School.) In reality, Ferguson is one of the most impressive and successful leaders the British Isles has produced since the industrial heyday of the Victorian era, and he produced and led a world-beating organization in one of the most competitive fields of human endeavor on the planet.

Is there a Ferguson formula for winning? For anyone hoping to learn the art of success from a master, here are 10 lessons.

1. Focus on the big things. Like many people who’d watched United from afar, I’d assumed Ferguson kept an iron grip on every detail of the club. Not true, it seems. Ferguson says leaders need to learn to delegate and manage through others. And he recalls learning early on how much more valuable it was for him to take a step back from the team’s daily practice sessions and watch from the sidelines, where he could see everything, than to take the field and try to coach them himself. That lesson, he recalls, “was the making of me.”

2. Build a winning organization. It’s not just about hiring stars or going for quick wins, he says. “I’ve always felt that it’s impossible to field a great football team if you don’t have a great organization,” writes Ferguson.

3. Fire people early. When Ferguson took over United in the 1980s, it was a mediocre club with the wrong players and culture. It took him years to change that into one reflecting his values. In retrospect, he says, he should have switched out more people sooner.

4. Recruit, train and promote young people. They’ll be loyal, they’ll climb mountains for you, and they’ll take on many of your values, notes Ferguson, who became famous for spotting and developing players such as David Beckham when they were young.


5. Keep reinventing your team. The world won’t stand still and nor can you. “(A)t United we effectively rebuilt the team on four-year cycles,” Ferguson recalls.

6. Communicate simply. Too many managers are too verbose. Ferguson says the two most powerful words in the language are “well done” — and few reprimands are as powerful as silence.

7. Value team discipline. Ferguson weeded out players who were disruptive or undermined cohesion, even when they were individually talented.

8. Show up. Leaders underestimate just how important their simple presence is, Ferguson says. He recalls a player complaining about his absence even from a training session. In total, he says he missed just three of United’s 1,500 professional fixtures during his tenure — an astonishing record.

9. Pick values over talent. Ferguson is famous for developing or signing some of the greatest soccer players in history, but says: “If I had to choose between someone who had great talent but was short on grit and desire, and another player who was good but has great determination and drive, I would always prefer the latter.”

10. Don’t micromanage. Ferguson says he learned early not to try to give players last-minute advice just before a big game or to try to shout lots of instructions from the sidelines during the match. It’ll just confuse or irritate them or undermine their confidence. If they don’t already know what to do by then, he says, there’s something wrong.
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