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OCTOBER 2013
REPRINT R1310G
Ferguson’s Formula by Anita Elberse with Sir Alex Ferguson
by Anita Elberse with Sir Alex Ferguson
Some call him the greatest coach in history.
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. 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. And Ferguson was far more than a coach. He played a central role in the United organization, managing not just the first team but the entire club. “Steve
Jobs was Apple; Sir Alex Ferguson is Manchester United,” says the club’s former chief executive David Gill.
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. Now she and Ferguson have collaborated on an analysis of his enormously successful methods.
2 Harvard Business Review October 2013
COPYRIGHT © 2013 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
PHOTOGRAPHY: SEAN POLLACK
Ferguson’s Formula
FOR ARTICLE REPRINTS CALL 800-988-0886 OR 617-783-7500, OR VISIT HBR.ORG
October 2013 Harvard Business Review 3
FERGUSON’S FORMULA
ANITA ELBERSE: Success and staying power like Sir
Alex Ferguson’s demand study—and not just by football fans. How did he do it? Can one identify habits that enabled his success and principles that guided it? During what turned out to be his final season in charge, my former student Tom Dye and I conducted a series of in-depth interviews with Ferguson about his leadership methods and watched him in action at United’s training ground and at its famed stadium,
Old Trafford, where a nine-foot bronze statue of the
OCTOBER 2013
REPRINT R1310G
Ferguson’s Formula by Anita Elberse with Sir Alex Ferguson
by Anita Elberse with Sir Alex Ferguson
Some call him the greatest coach in history.
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. 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. And Ferguson was far more than a coach. He played a central role in the United organization, managing not just the first team but the entire club. “Steve
Jobs was Apple; Sir Alex Ferguson is Manchester United,” says the club’s former chief executive David Gill.
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. Now she and Ferguson have collaborated on an analysis of his enormously successful methods.
2 Harvard Business Review October 2013
COPYRIGHT © 2013 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
PHOTOGRAPHY: SEAN POLLACK
Ferguson’s Formula
FOR ARTICLE REPRINTS CALL 800-988-0886 OR 617-783-7500, OR VISIT HBR.ORG
October 2013 Harvard Business Review 3
FERGUSON’S FORMULA
ANITA ELBERSE: Success and staying power like Sir
Alex Ferguson’s demand study—and not just by football fans. How did he do it? Can one identify habits that enabled his success and principles that guided it? During what turned out to be his final season in charge, my former student Tom Dye and I conducted a series of in-depth interviews with Ferguson about his leadership methods and watched him in action at United’s training ground and at its famed stadium,
Old Trafford, where a nine-foot bronze statue of the