Managing My Life by Alex Ferguson (February 2019)
A book I was particularly excited to finally read this year was Managing My Life, an ‘autobiography’ (ghost written by Hugh McIllvanney) of former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson. It followed his life up to the peak of his career at the time, winning The Treble in 1999. It is widely regarded as among the best (not helmet) football autobiographies ever (ghost) written. As you may suspect, reader, there is a good deal of insight into ‘Fergie’ and his managerial techniques and I’ll cover those in more detail over three upcoming posts.
Today, I simply wanted to highlight some of the broader life insights I enjoyed in this book. I liked the observation that communities built on a shared industry tend to support each other. In this specific thought, I also see a larger lesson in how empathy (perhaps cultivated by recognition of shared struggles in pursuit of a common goal) is more easily cultivated in such communities. As I noted from Sebastian Junger’s Tribe, strong communities tend to follow whenever its members are assessed by how they contribute to a common effort.
I thought the comment that an excess of common sense often leads to wisdom was an important reflection on the form of insight people most commonly value in their peers and mentors. It may be that common sense is in fact the first form of wisdom. Regardless of the exact relationship, there is great value in simply being able to observe reality in our surroundings and take the appropriate action on the behalf of those we can help. It’s the surest path to becoming a genuine person, one who can admit difficulties as a way to start dealing with them, and such people often have no choice but to point the way for the struggling, overwhelmed, or depressed who benefit so much from blunt, explicit, or direct reinforcement.
One up: Ferguson’s managerial career speaks for itself and the breadth of his accomplishments suggests that perhaps he was extraordinarily gifted among his peers. However, this book demonstrates that he earned his success through a combination of relentless work ethic and unwavering resilience. The story behind massive success so often resembles that of an injured player unexpectedly returning to full fitness – it’s merely the result of a consistent and significant effort, day after day, until one morning it just seems like everything changed overnight.
One down: Honesty and loyalty tend to go together because these characteristics are the bulwarks against one of the great ever-present temptations, selfishness. However, these characteristics alone can sometimes create vulnerability. The honest man, for example, does not always understand that being seen as honest is nearly as important as possessing the characteristic. What good is a positive quality if others remain unaware of it?
In a somewhat related way, loyal people are at-risk for overlooking the significance of someone breaking their word. A loyal person might dismiss an isolated act as an exception and grant forgiveness. However, the type of people who break their word once generally don't turn out to be so loyal and the second chance is likely to be squandered through another (predictable) betrayal.
Just saying: I suppose in a certain way I wasn’t surprised by how much non-football insight there was in this work. As I noted above, wisdom grows naturally out of common sense and there is little doubt that as a manager Ferguson remembered his common roots whenever his knowledge or instincts fell short. We’ll take a closer look at how he applied common sense and its ensuing wisdom in upcoming posts about his managerial techniques.
