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Superstar coach Sir Alex Ferguson talks about 'Leading,' laughs off becoming head of FIFA

What happens when a legendary soccer coach connects with a storied Silicon Valley investor? A book of course! Sir Alex Ferguson coached Manchester United (MANU), from 1986 to 2013, to an unprecedented level of success, winning 13 English Premier League titles, while Michael Moritz had a wildly successful career at Sequoia Capital, which famously invested in Apple, Cisco, and YouTube. Sure, plenty of famous coaches have written books on winning and such. But never has one teamed up with someone like Moritz, who in a previous life was a staff writer at Time Magazine, where decades ago, he wrote a groundbreaking story on the young Steve Jobs.

In an interview with Yahoo Finance, Ferguson, who teaches a bit at Harvard these days, talked about leadership lessons in their new book “Leading: Learning from Life and My Years at Manchester United.” Ferguson, who grew up in humble circumstances in Scotland, talked about the most important pieces of his management philosophy: “There are several things about my personality and my decision-making,” he said. “My consistency is really important. I think consistency is an important element of leadership in whatever industry you’re in. It eradicates confusion, everyone knows exactly who you are and you don’t change. And that consistency made a different world for me.”

There are many similarities between running a high-profile tech organization and a high-performance tech company, said Mortiz, who has been on the board of, and helped advise companies such as Yahoo, Google, PayPal and LinkedIn. The talent is the most important part of the company, and yet you must not kowtow to individuals, you must lead, he said. “They work for me, I don’t work for them,” Ferguson said.

Ferguson acknowledged that FIFA was a mess, saying: “Well, I think that the thing is not surprising that there’s a big investigation now and that’s been driven out from America. We’ve lost confidence in their leadership. There’s a suspicion that there’s more going on, and I’m really looking forward for this investigation to bring it all out.” But when he was asked if he had interest in taking over the troubled organization, Ferguson laughed off that suggestion. “Someone emailed me the other day and said why don’t you go for it [running FIFA] and I said no, it’s not my field,” he said.

Ferguson spoke about watching David Beckham and other young players succeeding at Manchester United and how their ability to win was apparent at a young age. And he talked about soccer growing in the U.S., especially with academies for youth soccer. He also envisioned a multi-country tournament in the Western hemisphere, a la the Champions League in Europe, which he says would help the game grow even more. And what about the World Cup 2022 in Qatar -- will that be a dangerous place to play given the high temperatures? “Very difficult,” he said.

 

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