Journey to GreatnessĪnita Elberse: Success and staying power like Sir Alex Ferguson’s demand study-and not just by football fans. Now she and Ferguson have collaborated on an analysis of his enormously successful methods. In 2012 Harvard Business School professor Anita Elberse had a unique opportunity to examine Ferguson’s management approach and developed an HBS case study around it. “Steve Jobs was Apple Sir Alex Ferguson is Manchester United,” says the club’s former chief executive David Gill. He played a central role in the United organization, managing not just the first team but the entire club. During that time the club won 13 English league titles along with 25 other domestic and international trophies-giving him an overall haul nearly double that of the next-most-successful English club manager. Before retiring in May 2013, Sir Alex Ferguson spent 26 seasons as the manager of Manchester United, the English football (soccer) club that ranks among the most successful and valuable franchises in sports. Some call him the greatest coach in history.
The approach that brought Ferguson’s team such success and staying power is applicable well beyond football-to business and to life. The lessons described range from the necessity of maintaining control over high-performing team members to the importance of observation and the inevitability of change. In this collaborative explication, she details eight parts of Ferguson’s “formula” as she observed them and gives the manager his say.
#About time movie review 2013 series
In 2012, during Ferguson’s final season before retiring, Harvard Business School professor Anita Elberse had the unique opportunity to observe Ferguson’s management style in a series of visits and in-depth interviews. In 26 seasons under Ferguson, United won 38 domestic and international trophies-giving him nearly twice as many as any other English club manager-and became one of the valuable franchises in sports.
When Alex Ferguson took over as manager of the English football team Manchester United, the club was in dire straits: It hadn’t won a league title in nearly 20 years and faced a very real threat of being relegated to a lower division.