Book Review: Leading, by Alex Ferguson

I thought this book complimented Alex Ferguson's autobiography nicely. Whereas his autobiography offers his thoughts on the players who he managed over the years (what made some players good and others great), this book offers insights into how he got the best out of his players. What really made this book excel in my opinion is its structure: it's nicely broken down into small 5-10 page chapters and the chapters are nicely grouped into themes. After reading the two books, I can't say I fully understand what made Alex Ferguson stand out singularly from other managers but I can definitely say I've learnt a lot from both books.

Below are some quotes from the book:

"... I gradually began to realise that teaching bears some similarities to football management. Perhaps the most important element of each activity is to inspire a group of people to perform at their very best."

Listening: "There's a reason that God gave us two ears, two eyes and one mouth. It's so you can listen and watch twice as much as you talk. Best of all, listening costs you nothing."

Watching: "... there are two forms of observation: the first is on the detail and the second is on the big picture."

Watching: "... you can see a lot more when you are not in the thick of things... 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."

"It takes courage to say, 'Let me think about it'."

Discipline: "If you can assemble a team of eleven 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."

Work rate: "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."

Drive: "For me drive means a combination of a willingness to work hard, emotional fortitude, enormous powers of concentration and a refusal to admit defeat."

Drive: "... a winning drive is like a magical potion that can spread from one person to another."

Conviction: "I cannot imagine how anyone, without firm convictions and deep inner beliefs, can be an effective leader."

Conviction: "It's one thing to have confidence in your own abilities. It's a completely different challenge to instil confidence in others."

Conviction: "As we reassembled for the following season, I kept reiterating that United expected to win absolutely every game we played. It didn't matter whether our opponent was the reigning Premier League, or Champions League champions, or a fourth division team we'd drawn in the FA Cup. I was just able to keep reinforcing the ideology that no club was bigger than United – no matter whether their owner controlled all the oil in the Persian Gulf, or every coal-mine in Russia."

Preparation: "Part of the pursuit of excellence involves eliminating as many surprises as possible because life is full of the unexpected. That's what our scouts, our youth system and the innumerable training sessions were all about."

Preparation: "... ultimately no battles are won by mounting a sterling defence. The way to win battles, wars and games is by attacking and overrunning the opposing side. So I would always dwell on our opponents' weaknesses – partly to exploit them and partly to impart in my players a sense of what was possible."

Pipeline: "When I joined Aberdeen in 1978 we had two scouts; by the time I left we had 17 scouts, who were responsible for identifying promising youngsters who lived in Scotland. The result was fabulous."

Pipeline: "Youngsters can inject a fantastic spirit in an organisation and a youngster never forgets the person or organisation that gave him his first big chance. He will repay it with a loyalty that lasts a lifetime."

Pipeline: "For young players, nothing is impossible, and they will try and run through a barbed-wire fence, while older players will try to find the gate."

Pipeline: "Every generation also raises the level of the game, because they stand atop more shoulders than the previous one."

Teamwork: "Balance is the key to every team. It is impossible to win a football game with eleven goalkeepers or with a group of people with identical talents."

Teamwork: "In football eight players, not eleven, win games, because everybody has off-days and it's almost impossible to make eleven people play to perfection simultaneously."

Teamwork: "I was always on the lookout for new players for the first-team squad... Whenever we came across a player of unusual ability, the unspoken question was whether he would serve us better than the current incumbent... Another exercise that I used to employ to keep myself honest was to ask myself which member of our first-team squad would be able to command a starting place with Real Madrid or AC Milan or whatever team happened to be Champions of Europe that year. That little mental exercise always illuminated our weaker spots."

Excellence: "Whenever we bought a player I would make a point of sitting down with him and explaining exactly what was expected of him at a club like Manchester United."

Inspiring: "You don't get the best out of people by hitting them with an iron rod. You do so by gaining their respect, getting them accustomed to triumphs and convincing them that they are capable of improving their performance."

Inspiring: "It turns out that the two most powerful words in the English language are, 'Well done'."

Inspiring: "Anyone who is in charge of a group of people has got to have a strong personality. That doesn't mean dominating every conversation or speaking at the top of your voice. Some quiet people have very strong personalities and rooms fall silent when they have something to say. A strong personality is an expression of inner strength and fortitude."

Inspiring: "... I always tried to couch [criticisms] in a positive way. For example, I would tell a young player that he would be far more effective if he passed the ball more. That message is more likely to be absorbed than barking, 'You're never going to be any good if you keep hogging he ball'."

Inspiring: "There is no benefit in engaging in public hangings. It just doesn't buy you anything. It humiliates the victim and does not do much to encourage those around him."

Inspiring: "While not always succeeding in the heat of the moment, I would try to reserve my severest comments for a private session with a player."

Inspiring: "I would always try to meld criticism with support by saying, 'You know you are capable of better. What were you thinking?'"

Speaking: "I made a habit of never going around issuing reminders to individual players. It just plants the seeds of doubt in their minds and they are left wondering whether the manager trusts them. Similarly, I never felt it made any sense to be perpetually barking instructions at players during games. If you have to resort to that, it means that you have not prepared or communicated your plan correctly, or you do not trust the players to do what they are supposed to do."

Speaking: "There are some managers who will enter a dressing room at half-time with a pack of notes. When they talk to the players they will use their notes as prompts. I cannot imagine how that is an effective way to communicate. 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 material, 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. I'm sure I got some stuff wrong. I'd miss a deflection or a foul but, in the grand scheme of things, those tiny details don't count. It's the message, the command of that message and its delivery that pack the punch. Everyone has their own style, but using notes when trying to motivate people is not mine."

Answering: "The journalists didn't own the press conferences. I did."

Control: "... a display of temper is more effective if used sparingly."

Control: "If you look at all my teams it was evident that they enjoyed playing and they tended to express themselves in an uninhibited fashion. People do not do that if they are quaking in their boots or if their boss has made them afraid of their own shadows."

Control: "Harsh outbursts and temper tantrums can, when used sparingly, have an effect, but it's a negative and corrosive way to run anything. It's far better to give people a belief in themselves, and faith in the direction of their organisation..."

Control: "I was the puppet master, not the control freak."

Delegation: "... working with, and through, others is by far the most effective way to do things – assuming, of course, that they understand what you want and are keen to follow."

Delegation: "... my job was different. It was 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."

Delegation: "When you're a manager, it's vital to care about the details but it's equally important to understand that there isn't enough time in the day to check on everything."

Delegation: "On the whole it is better to explain to the people around you that you care about little details, but that it's their job to attend to them."

Delegation: "When I hired someone to do something I trusted them to do it. I depended on them to get on with their job and come to me with any problems."

Decision-making: "During my time at United I got rid of several people who could not make decisions. I could never deal with people who were wishy-washy or whose judgement rested on the opinion of the last person they had talked to. They just made my life harder."

Buying: "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. 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."

Frugality: "... my upbringing always inclined me towards building rather than buying. I suppose I was more of what my son Mark, in his line of work, would call a 'value investor'."

Brokers: "I was struck when I read The Snowball, the biography of Warren Buffet by Alice Schroeder, to learn of his distrust of investment bankers. I feel about football agents the way Mr Buffet feels about bankers – they are what he calls 'money shufflers'."

Data overload: "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."

Confidentiality: "As my father always said, you only need six people to carry your coffin and, as I have got older, I have become ever more appreciative of that remark."