{"id":595,"date":"2016-10-28T15:00:08","date_gmt":"2016-10-28T15:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/?p=595"},"modified":"2016-10-27T14:51:00","modified_gmt":"2016-10-27T14:51:00","slug":"book-review-alex-ferguson-michael-moritz-leading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/book-reviews\/2016\/10\/book-review-alex-ferguson-michael-moritz-leading\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review- Alex Ferguson with Michael Moritz: Leading"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Joe<\/a>
Joe Briars, 1st year Southampton student, gives his review of the best seller<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alex Ferguson, perhaps the greatest manager of all time, puts forward his book, Leading, in which he explores the enigma behind his 38 years as a football manager. In just 13 chapters, Ferguson tries to analyse the experiences, decisions and tactics that lead to success at a range of clubs, including his 26 years at Manchester United in which he won 38 trophies. The ideas discussed covers a wide range of issues including player and staff transfers, adapting, managing, and authority. Throughout the book Ferguson tries to link his footballing success to the business world.
\nSomething you learn about Sir Alex Ferguson is that his obsession with football came above all else. His daily routine was strenuous. 14 hours of work being the norm, with phone calls to his vast scouting network once home not included in this \u2018day\u2019s work\u2019. Family life very much took the back seat, and he was thankful for his wife, Cathy, for this. His will to win was almost like a religious act, devoting all attention to the matter. Even the day after winning, triumphing Ferguson would be thinking about what his team could improve on to retain the title next year. To achieve at the highest level, he believed in a specific set of values. For example, he describes complacency as a \u2018disease\u2019 and once hammered his Manchester United team for losing the final game of the season (in which they had won the title many games beforehand).
\nFerguson\u2019s autocratic leadership style is clear to see; his decision came above all else and he demanded total respect from the players. In his early years of management at Aberdeen Fc he would even conduct training sessions himself, although he goes onto say one of the most important lessons he ever learnt was that by watching from the stands he could observe much more intently. He was fearless when it came to getting rid of high profiled players who undermined his control. \u2018Everyone is disposable\u2019 is a phrase used to describe the selling of Ruud Van Nistelrooy; one of the most potent strikers in world football at the time. Moreover, he never tried to be friends with his players as he saw it to be a recipe for failure. Instead he made sure to keep authority, whilst trying to create a tightly knit atmosphere. When United moved to their new training ground, Carrington in 2000, Ferguson claimed he wanted one dining room for everyone rather than splitting staff from players, as he wanted to create a team based culture.
\nI feel that the links made to the business world are quite repetitive and almost forced in some places. Vague references are made, usually along the lines of \u2018and these are characteristics needed to run large corporate companies\u2019. Whilst there is no doubt Ferguson is one of the greatest leaders to ever live and his some of his ideas and methods can be taken into the business world, many of the ideas in the book I feel are limited to football.
\nThe book is an intriguing read and there\u2019s much to be learnt from such a successful leader. As well as getting a look at what made Sir Alex Ferguson tick, you also learn about famous situations, like player contract problems, which are particularly interesting to football fanatics. This book might not be for you if you have little knowledge of football as many of the references will have little meaning.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By: Joe Briars<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alex Ferguson, perhaps the greatest manager of all time, puts forward his book, Leading, in which he explores the enigma behind his 38 years as a football manager. In just 13 chapters, Ferguson tries to analyse the experiences, decisions and tactics that lead to success at a range of clubs, including his 26 years at Manchester United in which he …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84196,1030549],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-general-interest","column","threecol"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":599,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions\/599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}