Compares to "Alex Ferguson - My Autobiography" and the earlier "Football- Bloody Hell", this book is seen as something completely different. In this book, Sir Alex talked about his role, importance and essence of leadership that brought a curtain down to his amazing career. The previous biography focuses on football and produced while he was still actively involved with the Red Devils. This book gave insight on how he managed to succeed in life. The added point appeared when the book itself featured a lot of football related content. So, as a maniac football fan, this book certainly brings a lot of pleasure in reading it.
Although it was intended to present in more "management" style, this book clearly revealing some of the interesting point about the great man. Readers will read about Sir Alex's crazy obsession with football. We are presented with a man who is willing to sacrifices family and personal life for the sake of glory in football. Furthermore, the man himself revealed a lot of his human being's general weaknesses and errors. The two significant one was his churning feeling in his stomach before the game and how he makes decisions with imperfect information. After all, he is the human being like me and you. However, he just has the determination and hard work to solve the puzzle.
The only flaw in this biography perhaps lies with the facts that it was mean to combine football with the management skill in general and leadership in particular. At times, I finding it hard to concentrate as my mind was mingled between football stuff versus management skill. Well, the creativity in combining management skill into the great man's mind was the selling point of this book. Yet, the confusion arose due to the same attractive point too. Fair enough? Ha...
In my last review on "Sir Alex- My Autobiography", I mentioned that the said book could be a complete journey reviewing for the great man. Out of surprise, this book provides more insightful information on how his great experiences can transform into any part of our life. Hence, despite a small flaw as mentioned above, I have no hesitation to rate this book at 10/10. With such a great book, I have to spend more time to list out some great quotes from the great man as below. These quotes will certainly help me and you towards a better future.
We're all accidental victims of our parents' DNA; we are shaped by the luck of the draw, the circumstances in which we grew up and the education we received. But we all have two sets of very powerful tools that we completely control; our eyes and our ears. Watching others, listening to their advice and reading about people are three of the best things I ever did.
Very often our victories were squeaked out in the last few minutes, after we had drained the life from our opponents. Games like life - are all about waiting for the chances and then pouncing on them.
It would not surprise me if some observers feel that much of United's success was due to our willingness to take unnecessary chances. I never thought like this because part of a leader's job is to eliminate as many risks as possible. Some might think that my fondness for horses or cards means that I am a gambler at heart, but that isn't really true. In my private life, I have always been very careful about the amount of money I am prepared to spend on a horse or bet at race-track, and the same caution applied at old trafford. We tried to leave nothing to chance. I cannot tell you how many half-time talks centered on the need to be patient and wait for the right opportunity to occur, rather than be dare devils.
Our critics would say this was lucky, or down to the pressure to extend the game into "Fergie Time", but in truth it came down to careful preparation and having a deliberate and thoughtful approach to risk.
It makes it far tougher to sell the dream of the future if you cannot point to the staff and facilities that will make it come true.
You don't have to love your players or your management team, but you do need to respect their abilities.
Some managers try to be popular with the players and become one of the boys. It never work. As a leader, you don't need to be loved, though it is useful, on occasion, to be feared. But, most of all, you need to be respected.
Jock was right that you cannot get too attached to people who work for you. The only time you must have that attachment is when they are in trouble- when they need your advice.
Complacency can often start seeping into an organisation that has had a string of triumphs.
The questions going through the back of my mind during any celebration were, "How do we top this? How do we get another triumph?" I never wanted us to be torpedoed by complacency.
I gradually learned that there was no point beating about the bush by taking somebody out for dinner or sending his wife a box of chocolates or flowers to try and soften the news. The gimmicks don't change the message. If you have decided you are going to get rid of someone, nothing beats honesty.
I found that helpful ideas would sometimes pop into my mind from out of nowhere while I was playing cards or reading a book or going through a wine catalog. I am sure the same sensation occurs to other leaders when they are riding their bikes, pruning their roses or climbing a mountain.
If we had 3pm kick off, I would give team talk between 1:15pm and 1:45pm. Once I had delivered my piece I would leave the players alone. We had prepared as best we could and last minute instructions always leave players wondering whether they command the manager's confidence.
Maybe some people, before a big performance or important encounter, try to calm their nerves with breathing exercises or a draw of whisky, but I never did so. I just accepted that nagging anxiety as part of my job. It accompanied me through life and it would have been a big warning sign that I was no longer up for the task that had anxiety - which really was a sign of how badly I wanted to win-ever disappeared.
If you have command and control of your subject, you don't need notes. No player is going to believe that someone is in control of his materials, or is an authority on a subject, if he has to keep resorting to notes. I relied on my memory and my own assessment and, that way, when I was talking to the players, I was able to maintain eye contact.
As much as it's essential to maintain eye contact when talking to a small group of people, I always found it disconcerting to catch someone's eye when speaking in front of a big room. I tended to look towards the audience because I knew that staring at notes on a lectern is one sure way to lose a crowd's attention. However, I never looked at any particular individual. Instead I's pick a spot at the back of the room slightly above the heads of the audience.
Everyone is disposable. Someone once said, 'Graveyards are full of indispensable men,' and it's a phrase worth dwelling on.
When you are in the football world, and I suspect in almost every other setting, you have to make decisions with the information at your disposal, rather that what you wish you might have. I never had a problem reaching a decision based on imperfect information. That's just the way the world works.
There are probably only two times to do so - too early or too late. If I was going to err on making one of those mistakes, I far preferred to make the decision earlier rather later.
Any leader is a salesman- and 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.
There's never been as much money in Scottish football as in English; early on in my career I got used to making the most from a little. I happen to think that's a useful discipline for any business or organisation, because it's so easy to waste money.
The inequity seems even more pronounced when you consider that, compared to other people, a footballer's peak earning years are very abbreviated - usually about six years and almost always fewer than ten. Don't tell me that some 28 year old who can manipulate a spreadsheet (of which there are hundreds of thousands, maybe millions) deserves to be paid more than a midfielder playing for Swansea City or Southampton.
I suspect most football managers get paid less- sometimes far less- than their start players. What message does it send to a team, if most of them are being paid more than their boss?
It wasn't the end of the world if we failed in a particular negotiation and that our success was not going to hinge on the arrival of one player. If you need one person to change your destiny, then you have not built a very solid organisation.
I'm sometimes amazed by how people get fixated on information. It's like standing in a hospital room staring at the numbers on the bedside monitors while the patient chokes to death on a chicken sandwich. You have to consider the human element of life and the way that circumstances and chance can upset everything - even the most accurate and clearly reported data. Knowing the heart rate of a player and doing all the video analysis in the world of his opposite number isn't going to help you if he loses control and gets sent off in the first minute.
Stealth and secrecy are two valuable weapons for any organisation.
You never stop building - if you do, you stagnate. I always used to say, "The bus is moving; make sure you are on it, don't be left behind."
There is no point suddenly changing routines that players are comfortable with. It is counterproductive, saps morale, and immediately provokes players to question the new man's motive... My message about alcohol would have been more effective if I had just quietly gone about getting rid of one of the players who had the wrong priorities. In the end, it took a long time to eradicate the drinking habit. But, after I sold some of the main culprits, people could see I was not just full of hot air and things slowly started to improve.
