I’m a big football fan and I’ve just finished a book celebrating Alex Ferguson’s “25 Years At The Top”. You may know about Ferguson but, if you don’t, he’s widely regarded as the most successful football manager ever.
I reckon though that his approach to the management of Manchester United contains lessons that can easily be applied to business.
One quote in particular caught my attention : “As manager, it is my job to cut through the emotion and disappointment to reach honest conclusions on which to base our planning and strategy for the future. I have to analyse what went wrong and what we got right. I must focus on getting everything into perspective so that we can make the right decisions going forward. Naturally I must not fall into the trap of making excuses for any shortcomings”.
Let’s look a little closer at this:
When looking at what has happened he detaches himself from the emotion.
He examines what has happened under a bright light – no hiding.
He looks for the positives (so as to reinforce them) and the negatives (so as to take remedial action).
He intentionally seeks the big picture so as to inform his decision-making.
And he avoids self-righteousness.
If you want help looking at your business in this way to see how to drive it forward get in touch!
PS : I’ll post the results of the President Obama vox pop later today!
PPS : I’m not a Man United fan and still thought the book was good :-).
