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I thought what was interesting
about him

was the strength he had as a leader,
combined with what was obviously

a very reflective self-analysis.

He could be the father confessor,
the motivational speaker,

the priest, the judge, the jury,
the Lord High Executioner,

the puppet master
and the inspirational figure

all in the course of one day.

You saw where particular individuals
were starting to become

far too important
in their own right

and he showed and demonstrated
that he could do without them.

His relentless need for success
and have that desire

to do better and to make sure
that we don't stand still.

You just trusted him.

That was the big thing,
because he'd won so much,

you'd just think,
I'm going to go with it.

What does it take to be
a great leader?

That's what people flock here
to the London Business School

from all over the world to find out
and a lucky few today

are going to hear
from one of the greats.

No, he's not a billionaire
from Silicon Valley,

he's not a general
who's led his troops into battle.

He's certainly not a politician.

He is, though, a man who, for more
than a quarter of a century,

masterminded one of this country's
greatest brands.

I have studied and analysed leaders
all my life

but I never saw one quite
as successful as Sir Alex Ferguson.

It's my very great pleasure
to welcome Sir Alex Ferguson.

What is the secret of his success?

Professor Anita Elberse
of the Harvard Business School

has studied it.

Together, they take classes,

addressing the next generation
of business leaders.

Today in London,

these students are getting
a crash course in leadership -

the Ferguson way.

So what we're going to be doing
is a case study

like we do those at Harvard

and this is a good test to see

whether you guys are as smart
as the people at Harvard.

Many regard him
as the best coach in all of sports.

Why is he such a great coach?

He's sat next to me!

Um, I would say...

LAUGHTER

I would say he's won everything
there is to win many times.

Er, Helena?

He's got a really strong vision.
He wants to win.

And he's ruthlessly executing
against that, every single time.

'It's still Ryan Giggs.
He's past Keown, past Dixon...

'and has scored
a sensational goal!'

Winning was what Sir Alex
did again and again and again.

When he retired, he'd won
an amazing 49 trophies in his career.

'Ronaldo!

'Right-footed,
it's a clear header...

'and it's into the net!'

CHEERING

And I just needed a miracle.

And of course, we got one.

'He tries to spread himself
as wide as he can.

'He makes the save
for Manchester United!

'Van der Sar!'

No-one is likely to
ever match his record

of winning 13 Premier League titles
and two Champions League trophies.

I think no doubt
he's one of the best coaches ever.

Not just because I was...

He was my leader,

so in history, no question,
probably the best one.

What does all this have to do
with business?

Why is this worthy of study
at a business school?

One person who knows the answer
to that question

is former Manchester United
Chief Executive David Gill.

He understood that in order to have
a successful football team,

and get what he wanted on the pitch,

the business of Manchester United
had to be very successful.

His leadership skills meant
that he could understand

what we were trying to do as a club.

I think the fact that the club
was champions for so many years

and has got such a reputation
across the world,

that you have to put that down
to his great management

and that had the knock-on effect

of creating great financial revenues
for the organisations.

It's about time
I turned over to the man himself.

Please, again, join me
in welcoming Sir Alex Ferguson.

Thank you.

Tomorrow, at Haydock Park,

I've a horse running
called Hairdryer.

LAUGHTER
True!

Sir Alex's record attracted
the attention of one of the world's

most successful investors - writer
and billionaire Michael Moritz

who made his money backing Apple
and PayPal and Google.

Moritz has been a student
of leadership for decades.

I started looking around
for the people in organisations

who had been able to steer
an organisation to perform

at a very high level of excellence,
consistently, for a very long time.

And that's what piqued my curiosity

about Sir Alex
and Manchester United.

Sir Alex is the first person to
say that his world is football

but the elements and rudiments
of leadership are universal skills

that are as applicable to
a multi-national corporation,

a boy scout troop,
a church organization

as they are to a football club.

A club made in his image, shaped by
his values, forged by his character.

Sir Alex Ferguson has
legendary status at Old Trafford.

As a lifelong United fan myself,
I don't claim to be impartial.

Ah, welcome. Great to see you.
Professor Ferguson.

'But I've always wanted to understand

'the ingredients of
the Fergie Formula for success.'

As I was watching you
at London Business School,

I was sitting next to a Chinese,
a Russian, a Uruguayan, an Italian.

Did you ever think
you would find yourself

lecturing on leadership to the young
entrepreneurs from around the world?

The thing about it,
the challenge is it's young people

and I've always enjoyed
my interaction with young people.

I've always enjoyed my time as
a manager producing young players,

because with young people, you know,
it's amazing how they surprise you

when you give them
an opportunity.

Now, back at the business school,
you had on the whiteboard,

all those people that can
crowd in on a football manager...

Yeah. ..who think they've
got a right to have a say. Yeah.

And you wiped a whole series
of them off.

This is a great bit.
Where's that duster?

Get rid of all these.
They don't mean a thing.

They don't mean anything.

Oh, sorry, fans should be there,
sorry.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

What was the essence left behind?
Well, there's a core.

Look at the core because
you can get trapped

in the periphery of things
that are happening.

Your players and your staff,

they're the important issues
of the whole thing.

And, of course,
you hope that, then, that transfers

your results into keeping fans
happy because that's my job.

Fans just want their team to win

but Ferguson insists that his job
involves a lot more than that.

Most managers go to a football club
because it's a result industry.

They're there to turn
the fortunes of the first team.

That's why they get the job.
I never thought that way.

My philosophy was to build
a football club.

Sir Alex made Man United, as a club,

to think in a certain way.

I think he modelled the club
around his view,

around his personality.

I think Man United
will be always influenced

by what he did

as a manager in the club.

The club was made at his image.

I think the strength of United
is this great family spirit

we always created. And people who
thrive and be recognised.

You don't mean the star players?

You're talking about the people
round the club.

Yeah, they're no problem.
I mean, the players,

you're with them all the time.
That's the difference.

As a manager at Manchester United,
you could easily walk by someone.

A girl came out of the office
and not recognise them.

I wouldn't do that.

I would say "hello",
"good morning", whatever.

And I think it's that recognition

that gives you
that strength of a family.

There's a dinner lady called Carol.

She hammers him. "What you
got on today? What is that?"

And he'd laugh and he'd go back
at her and he'd start talking about

her hair or something
or whatever.

That's the way he is. People don't
see that side of him a lot,

but he was really, really good
like that.

He had this unbelievable ability
of remembering everyone's name.

Obviously, he knows Cath on reception
and the laundry girls

and the chefs and the cleaners.

You've got 65, 70 players.

You've got to remember
all their names.

Plus the schoolboys,
that's another 30 or 40.

He knew all the names
because he took an interest in what

they were doing
and how they were progressing.

He was the top man
and if he's doing it,

then everyone else
should be doing it as well.

Everyone loves him there
in the club.

He'd invite everyone
to come for lunch, uh...

for a cup of tea.

English cup of tea.

So it is... It was a family.

It was a family with him.

And leaders often forget that,
right?

That it's just as much about
the ladies doing the laundry,

and making sure that they're happy

as it is about making sure

that Cristiano Ronaldo
is having a great day.

The family Ferguson created at United

was inculcated with the values

he'd learnt from his family,

growing up in Glasgow
in the '40s and '50s

in the shadow of the Govan shipyards.

I want to get you to look at an image

of the place you grew up.

Govan. Govan. That's the shipyards.

Of course, two cranes there.

I lived only a mile and a half
from there.

Sometimes I used to go and wait
on my dad coming out the gates

at around about five o'clock.

You know,
even though the temperatures

and the wind that came down
that Clyde,

it never stopped them from working,

never stopped them from
building ships.

So toughness against the odds?
Absolutely.

They would never bow, these people.

I was proud to be brought up
in that kind of environment.

Let's take a look at your parents.

There we are, there's the Fergusons.
Yeah.

And you see the ties?
There were footballs on them.

There were... Even at that age?
Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, my dad was...

My dad played for Glentoran
in Northern Ireland.

He worked in Harland and Wolff
in Northern Ireland for a spell.

And you didn't want to get
on the wrong side of him?

Oh, no way. No, he was...

He wasn't the type
who would punish you,

but his voice was enough.

He was a quiet man. But when he...

he wasn't happy with you, he raised
the voice and that was enough.

So you didn't want to be
on the wrong side of him,

he was a stickler for keeping time..
Yeah, yeah.

Does it sound a bit familiar?
Stayed with me all my life.

I love to be early.
You know, I'm always early.

But there must have been clashes.

Were there moments where you
thought...? Well, my dad...

..cos any teenager with their dad...
Oh, yeah.

..would fall out quite badly...

We never spoke for about
seven or eight months for a while,

because he wanted me to go
to junior football...

You didn't speak
for seven or eight months? Yeah.

He wanted me to go to
junior football to protect me,

if I didn't make it
in senior football.

Did you learn that sometimes
keeping quiet

can be just as worrying
for someone...?

Absolutely, yeah.
Just as good for a leader to do.

Yeah, absolutely. Quieter moments.
I remember we were down 3-0

at half-time at Tottenham Hotspurs,
I never says a word.

They were ready to go out, I says,
"The next goal's a winner.

"Let's score the first goal
and see where it takes us,"

and we scored within a minute.

You scored within a minute,
you went on to score five! 5-3, yeah.

You once said something

that I think a lot of people
would find surprising -

that when you're looking
at a footballer,

one of the first things you wanted
to do is look at their mum and dad.

Yeah, absolutely. Definitely.

Try and find out what
kind of parents they've got.

And particularly the mother.

We used to say to all the scouts,
"Get the mother...

"Get the mother on your side,

"because she makes
all the decisions."

The father, a lot of the time, can
be entranced by his son's progress

and sort of living in their boots
a little bit, you know?

They live in the glory of the kid.

The mother wants to do the best
for her son.

No question about that.

So, in terms of
dealing with parents,

the mother's
the most important person.

He's great with people's mums.

My mum was there
and my wife was there.

My girlfriend at the time, she was.

And he just made them
feel comfortable

and I remember them coming out
of the room, when we finished,

and went to the hotel after

and they were saying,
"He was such a nice guy."

It was Ferguson's reputation
as a disciplinarian

that appealed to Manchester United.

That and his record at Aberdeen.

His team beat
the mighty Real Madrid

to lift the
European Cup Winners' Cup.

He arrived at
Old Trafford in 1986,

and before he could revive
a once great club,

he had first to tackle
a pernicious drinking culture.

I was a bit impulsive, I think.

I called everyone into the
gymnasium, all the young players,

all the staff, all the players.

So I said to them,
"Look, I've read all these stories.

"I've heard all these stories
about the drinking culture.

"Well, I have to tell you,
I won't change.

"You're all going to
have to change. That's a fact."

I mean, how big a problem was it?

Well, I think there was
a genuinely bad element

of drinking in the afternoons.

Going away from the training ground
to spend all afternoon drinking.

People tell stories.
People phone the manager

of Manchester United or Arsenal
or Liverpool, tell them,

"I seen your pair in the pub."
It happens. It happens.

That's the great networking system
you have,

being the manager of
Manchester United.

It's a nice word, "network".
It's spies, isn't it?!

Yeah, well, you need it, you know?

And I then realised to myself,

we're not going to win the league
with this team.

So we did a fire sale.

Got rid of about nine players
and brought five young players in,

people who were hungry enough
to accept challenge

and send the club in
a different direction.

'The new leader of another
failing organisation

'faced similar problems
just a few years later.

'Tony Blair's Labour Party
had lost four elections in a row.'

In a sense,
you both did the same thing -

you took over losing teams

and you had to try and change
the culture of those teams.

Is that vital for someone
who's a leader?

To be prepared to challenge
the existing culture,

not live with it as it is?

Yeah, always the greatest problem
when you're leading an organisation

that is failing is that you
take the system as it is

and you just try to make it work,

when it may be the system itself
that is at fault.

So, in other words, you know,

it may be that you can't get
a political party back to power

just by amending the same message.

You may have to change it
completely.

You know, you may have to redraw
the whole boundaries

of your organisation.

You may have to, as we had
to do with the Labour Party,

fundamentally shift it.

He asks and demands
discipline and respect.

It's a balanced approach.

It's not just showing everyone that
he is the guy who has the power.

Step one in the
Fergie Leadership Manual -

assert control and impose discipline.

The 180-degree opposite to
discipline is anarchy.

Well, anarchy won't achieve a thing,

because people will just shove off
in different directions,

and so discipline is essential

for any team to achieve
the common objective.

And I think that's true of soccer
as it's true of the army.

Sir Alex knew that if you
didn't have discipline

within the organisation,
anarchy would break out

and it would become unwieldy and
impossible to manage or to lead.

I would get into the training
ground... Be there about seven.

I would be there
till God knows what time.

I would stay to watch the academy,
whatever, and I was...

'He arrived very, very early.

'All the time, he was there
in his office to check,'

to make the training.

And always the first one in

and always the last one to go home.

So I learned this
kind of stuff with him.

And that's something
that wasn't lost on the players,

so if he's in early,
why are you not?

He's been doing it 25, 30 years.
Why are you not in before him

or at least near the same time
as him and putting the work in?

Turning up on time
and training hard

were only the beginning of what
the boss demanded from his team.

I wanted them to be
Manchester United in terms of dress,

made sure they wore their blazer
and flannels wherever they went,

in terms of away from home,
in particular.

And why does it matter, though? For a
leader thinking, "Well, who cares?"

Well, I think you're representing
the club that way.

You walk through an airport and you
see the blazer, you see that badge.

There's Manchester United.
They're dressed right, you know?

So the first time I witnessed that

was going to Switzerland in a
tournament for the youth team.

And we're all in our blazers
and we all got told,

in no uncertain terms, that, "You're
representing Manchester United,

"both on and off the pitch.

"So I want you to make sure that you
behave yourself around the hotel

"cos people'll be watching you."

Your lesson, if you were back
in that classroom,

is those little things matter...
Yeah, details.

..just as much as the big things.
Yeah, absolutely. Details. Yeah.

All points to the top
of the mountain, yeah.

"Points to the top of the mountain."
Everything can contribute.

Yeah, absolutely. Just like talking
to the laundry girls

or the canteen staff. Yeah.

Everything makes a difference.
They all matter.

They all matter. A club like United,
they seriously matter.

I want to show you a photograph
which might give you a thought

about some of these issues, as well.

Let's have a quick look.
See if you remember this photo.

Remember those? God almighty...

Why did they do that?

When was that? That was
the '96 Cup Final at Wembley.

I said to Brian Kidd, "1-0."

Those aren't your players, of course,
those are Liverpool.

Yeah, it's Liverpool, yeah.

You turned to Brian Kidd,
your assistant...

1-0. 1-0.
What, just because of this?

Yeah.

Because of that.

I think that's...

I don't know,
what would you call it?

Arrogance or overconfidence or...

I don't know. It was ridiculous.

I think it was
absolutely ridiculous.

Blue shirt, red and white tie
and a white suit and a blue flower.

Who designed that?

And they say it was Armani! Yeah?

I bet you his sales went down.

But I'm still working out
what it was.

Was it cos they're not taking
the game seriously?

Well...

I mean, Jamie Redknapp's
got sunglasses on...

But, you know,
the most telling part of it is

Roy Evans and Ron Moran
had black suits on.

I think they were embarrassed.

Liverpool Football Club's
a great club with history.

They've won the European Cup
more times than Manchester United.

Between Manchester United
and Liverpool,

they've won more trophies
than any club in Britain.

That didn't represent Liverpool.

James gets there just first.

Cantona!

There is to be a memorable end
to a poor cup final.

The Liverpool episode at Wembley,

where they were wearing the white
suits, he would use stuff like that.

"Have you seen these lot?
You seen what they're wearing?

"They think they've won it already."

Stuff like that would get
into your heads that,

"What do you mean they think
they've won it already?"

Sir Alex had other ways of getting
into his players' heads,

including what became known
as "the hairdryer",

a term first coined by
United striker Mark Hughes.

The hairdryer...

LAUGHTER

Erm, the hairdryer
obviously is a myth.

LAUGHTER

Let me just put that out there.

But that apparently
was the treatment

that underperforming players
received from Sir Alex.

And basically he's standing
in close proximity

and he's shouting so hard
that your hair goes like this.

..and shout at you and
physically blow you out the room.

LAUGHTER

Can I show you a little video?

Oh, dearie me.
Do you know what's coming? No.

We're not lip reading.

I wasn't well that day.
NICK LAUGHS

If you were like that
on the touchline,

I wonder what you were like
in the changing room?

I always want to get it off
my chest, out of my system

and kick on from there.

What I said to them remained
in the dressing room.

I could be really angry,
I could be volatile, I could be...

But it was over.

And the players knew that. They knew
that. I never brought it up again.

I never held a grudge ever
in my life.

And when you heard it was called
the hairdryer, did you think...?

Honestly, I didn't like it
at the time. Honestly.

I was a bit annoyed, you know?
But now...

You have to... You have to...
You can smile.

Put it in the comedy part, you know?

We played Benfica away and got beat.

We didn't play well and he was...

he was shouting at me...

and I thought I was one of our
best players on the day.

And I was thinking,
"What are you shouting at?"

So I started going back at him,
shouting back,

and the problem is,
which I failed to learn quickly,

is that the more you shout at him,

the louder he gets
and the more aggressive he gets

and the closer he gets to you.

He had that skill of have you
got to put your arm around someone

or have you got to lose your temper
to get the best out of them?

I remember him having a go
at me at at half-time

and I had the sort of attitude,
"Right, OK, I'll show him."

And played well the second half.

So then he quickly knew how I would
respond to him losing his temper.

That followed me for
the next 20 years,

so it was a big mistake early on.

Giggsy sometimes would have
to do one thing wrong in a half.

Half-time comes, he hammered...
He would hammer Giggsy.

But that was to show
the other players

no-one's exempt
from getting hammered

and you better all fix up,

cos I'll be coming for you
at full-time

if you don't sort this out.

I remember sometimes when we do
something bad or we lost some games,

he'd kick the chairs and he'd kick
the boots, he'd kick everything,

the waters, the drinks,
and he's so red

and, "BLEEP! You should
pass the ball, you..."

It's unbelievable, but it was good,
because we learn.

The great thing
about the boss was that,

the next day, it was forgotten.

And you'd be walking towards him,
approaching him,

the next day thinking,
"Is he going to have a go at me?"

And he would just crack a joke or
he would talk about the next game.

And how often was it
you were just generally furious,

you got to tell people, and how often
was there a bit of calculation?

A little bit of...

Sometimes I would lose my temper
when we would win.

Now, the real reason for losing your
temper is because of expectation.

I could never visualise us
losing a game.

You know, by the time
I picked my team,

done the tactics, had my team talk,

I was confident
we'd always win the game.

But of course you don't
win every game, that's a fact.

But when they drop
below their expectation,

that annoyed me the most, you know?

No player was too big to be
spared the hairdryer -

Ince, van Nistelrooy, Beckham,

following that famous bust-up
with a flying boot.

No player,
except perhaps Eric Cantona,

United's iconic French superstar,
who got very different treatment,

even after a spectacular lapse
in discipline.

I want you to take you back a moment,
I suspect, is hard for you,

let alone anybody else, to forget.
Let's just take a look.

Oh, yeah.

Did you see that?

I didn't see it at all.

I was looking at the pitch.

But, Jesus, you know,
when you see what he's done.

It was a problem for the club,
because it got such headlines,

it was front page,

and we decided to have a meeting
at Alderley Edge the next night.

On our way, I get a phone call
from Ritchie Greenbury,

the chairman of Marks & Spencer
at the time, Richard.

And a big United fan?
Big United fan.

He says,
"Well, don't let Cantona go.

"He'll give you
great moments of joy."

And I said, "I know that."

But, you know,
there was the mood of the board,

so I had to fight the case,
"Look, we must keep him.

"We can't let him go.
We can't give in to the mob."

And we decided to suspend him
for four months.

And the FA were, at the time,
were happy with it,

but somehow they added to it.

NEWSREEL: Ahead of Cantona, then,
seven months of training.

Dull, laborious, unfulfilling.

Expediency may yet mean that with
regret club and player part company.

But, as the great disciplinarian,

wasn't your first instinct to think,
"He's blown it. He's a great player.

"I get on with him,
but that's too much"? Yeah.

Well, he had never...

He had never given us any indication
that explosion was there.

But I decided to approach it
this way -

I would speak to him every day.

And I would talk to him
about football all the time

and he loved it, you know?

And that's why all the players
say he was my prodigal son.

But I think he needed
different attention.

He needed different ways
of dealing with him.

He was a different guy
from everyone else.

He's an amazing human being.

But when you saw that image of him
kicking a spectator,

wasn't there a bit of you
that thought,

"That's exactly the ill discipline
that has to stop at this club.

"I've got to get rid"?

No, there was
something in me that said,

"I need to do something about him.
I need to stand by him."

Because the world was after him
and it was a bit like...

..no-one was there to help him.

And I said, "Well, it'll have
to be me, cos I'm his manager."

I think the thing that amazed me,
and used to frustrate me at times,

was his man management.

I'd never seen him have a go
at Eric Cantona, for example.

Some of the players
would resent that,

"Why's he not having a go at
Cantona? He's missed a penalty."

Or "Why's he not having a go at
Cantona? He had an awful game."

The manager knew, in the long run,
that he would come good,

that he would produce the goods
at the right time.

Yeah, his man management
was second to none.

To have all his honesty

that allows him
to be father, friend,

brother of a player.

Enemy of a player. But enemy...

for a few...a few seconds.

But then the brother comes again
or the old brother or the father.

These human qualities...

are absolutely crucial
to be a great leader.

The fabulous leader
is a very rare individual

and that person is capable of

making an organisation do things,
making the people,

persuading, cajoling, nudging,

caressing, sometimes,
the people inside an organisation

to do something that they weren't,
didn't think they were capable of.

What we have here essentially
is a case

that is about how one person is
very effective at managing teams.

That's not enough, though,
for a leader.

They also need to know
how to cull their teams,

how to be ruthless.

Yes, over here.

When they had big players and they
had the youth team coming through,

the confidence to effect the change,
sell the big players

and go with the youth players.

A good leader has to
make tough decisions,

that's why he or she is a leader.

And sometimes there are things
which are not very nice.

Erm, you have to lay off a whole
group of people, for example.

200, 300 people,
close down a factory.

In some cases,

you may have to release
a very highly paid individual,

but you have to do it. It's part
and parcel of being a leader.

As you go through your career,
you've got to rebuild the team.

You have to be ruthless.

It's the hard part for you,
because they do become like family,

you know,
and the great squad of '94,

the Cantonas and the Inces
and Robson

and these players,
Bruce, they get older.

And the horrible thing is the
evidence is on the football field,

and you can't avoid that.

Some of these issues
were played out in the press,

but he wasn't afraid to make
the decision which he thought

was for the long-term or
medium-term benefit of the team.

And I think that ability to be
ruthless is no bad thing,

but, at the same time,
I think he did have compassion

and I don't think he necessarily
found all these decisions easy.

And it wasn't just players
past their peak who were shown

the red card by Ferguson.

The scenario with Roy Keane -

there was a video
that he'd done for MUTV

that the club didn't want to go out.

The manager thought
that it wasn't right,

it was disrespectful, et cetera,
to the team.

The next day, he told the players
that Roy Keane would never come

back to Man United again.

He was captain of Man United.

'Roy Keane lifts the trophy
for Manchester United.'

Best player probably Man United
had for a long period of time.

That was for the next generation.

"Don't think you're ever bigger
than this club, cos you're not.

"Cos you'll go.

"I've just told the captain
he's never coming back again.

"What are you going to do now?"

Hey, this is ridiculous!

LAUGHTER

How do you handle a particularly
difficult member of the team?

That was a question
which haunted a new Prime Minister

who turned to Sir Alex for advice.

We would talk about man management

and I would say, "Look, such and
such an individual is, you know...

"He might be really brilliant
but he's very, very tough.

"I don't know quite
what to do about it."

Of course, Alex, cos this is
how he would run his soccer teams,

said "Get rid of him".

And I'd say,
"Well, it's all very well, Alex,

"but how would you be
if you got rid of a player

"but still found them in the
dressing room every day?"

And he said, "Now that would
be a problem," he said.

"That would definitely be
a problem."

I said to him,
"You have to keep your control."

I don't know who he
was talking about at the time

but you have to keep control.

"You're the Prime Minister.
You have to have control."

You must have guessed
he was talking about Gordon Brown.

I didn't know, actually.

And I don't think anyone knew
till later on

that there was some sort of...there
was some feeling between the two.

He said to you,

"What do you do with a player
who won't accept the discipline?"

And you said, "Get him out".

If they are affecting the control
of you or they're disrupting

the dressing room, you have to
make the decision - is it worth it?

We weren't actually talking
about an individual

but a hypothetical case, as it were.

But, yeah,
his attitude was it doesn't matter

if he's your best player, if he's
difficult, put him out of the room.

But even Sir Alex sometimes lived to
regret his decisions about players.

I always thought I was brave
enough to make decisions,

maybe sometimes wrong.

I made a wrong decision with
Jaap Stam. That was a mistake.

One decision we've talked
about quite a bit is the decision

to let Jaap Stam
go to an Italian club

and I think it was based
on his belief

that maybe Jaap Stam would
not come back from his injury.

It's a decision he regrets,
because Jaap Stam went on to

play for six seasons
at a very, very high level.

He played two European cup finals.
It was a good decision, wasn't it?

LAUGHTER

Changing the team only works,
of course,

if the people who replace those
who are let go, the next generation,

prove to be better.

You're mentioning youth players.

What is characteristic
of the Ferguson brand

when it comes to youth? Yes?

I think it's kind
of giving them a lot of,

a lot of chance to kind of shine
and grow as a team. Right.

MORITZ: 'No structure is going
to remain standing

'unless it's built
on a firm foundation,

'so, for United,

'this meant above all developing'

a pipeline of young players,

um, who, when they were signed,
weren't very well-known,

or when they were purchased,
were, in many instances,

affordable and cheap purchases.

Building a team around
a new generation of talented kids

may look a safe bet now.
At the time, it was a risky gamble.

So let's take a look at what became
known as the Class of '92.

OK. Look at Scholesy. You'd think
he's just out of nursery!

Well, they weren't.
What ages were they there?

They would be 17.
Giggs would be maybe 18.

And some people look at that group
and say, "It was a one-off".

You were a very lucky man.

It is not unreasonable to say that
but I have to say this.

We were scouting and trialling and
coaching the best in the country.

I'm sure of that.

We were obviously characters and we
were in the mind-set that once

we get in this team,
we're not going out of it.

We were lucky in the fact that
we had a manager who was willing

to give us a chance and was willing
to gamble, really, on youth.

And remember this,
some thought it wouldn't pay off.

Brilliantly done!

The trick is always buy when you're
strong. So he needs to buy players.

You can't win anything with kids.

Alan Hansen, of course,
told you you'd win nothing with kids.

Well, you can't win anything
without them.

The secret was the development of
the character that feared nothing,

so coming to the first team with me,
it was a cakewalk for them.

They just sailed through it,
absolutely no problem.

These young lads were old heads
on young shoulders.

We worked hard to get there.

We worked hard, but, yeah,
with the right material...

The first time I played,
I came on as a substitute and, yeah,

I can remember
the manager's last words -

"Just go out and enjoy yourself."

Um, you're thinking,
"What do you mean, enjoy myself?

"Um, I'm going out to play...

"You know, I'm going out to play
in front of 40-odd thousand

"and I'm 17

"and um, I'll try and enjoy it
but I don't think I will!"

But, um, he always said that
and, um, like I say, instantly,

you just felt relaxed.

That's part of man management and
not putting too much pressure on me.

But also knowing
what I was capable of.

And did you think of yourself,
almost as a father figure to them?

That you were teaching them
how to grow up,

how to behave in the way
that your father taught you?

I think that the character-building
does apply itself that way.

And there are some instances
where players would come to me

with personal problems, knowing
it would never go out the door,

knowing they could trust me
to help them

and I was proud that the players
would trust me in that way.

It was when my daddy
was sick in London.

And he was in hospital, very bad.

HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

INTERPRETER: Coma.

In coma. In a coma?

And I had a conversation with him,

and I say, "Boss, I want to...
I don't feel good."

And we had...we are in a...

a key moment in the league,
in the Champions League, but I said,

"I don't feel good,
I want to see my dad."

"Cristiano,
if you want to go one day,

"two days, one week, you can go.
I'm going to miss you.

"I'll miss you here, because
you know that you are important,

"but your daddy
is in the first place."

When he told me that, I feel like
"This guy is unbelievable."

He was the father of football
for me.

'Cristiano Ronaldo with a shot and
Ronaldo finds the back of the net.

'It's a stunning goal.'

He knew what he had under his bonnet
with Cristiano as well.

He knew he had the potential
to be a world star,

best player on the planet.

And he knew there were
certain aspects of his life

that he needed to take care of
and help him with,

and I think you see that
in the way Cristiano

speaks about the manager now, even
after all these years have gone by.

He refers to him as his father
in football, which is testament,

really, to the way
the manager dealt with him.

Is that power?

Yes, you have all the power. Yeah.

Right, a bit of advice.

I don't think power is
very important. I really don't.

I think the thing I was always after
was to make sure I kept my...

My control.

Ferguson imposed that control, not
just on the pitch, but off it too.

When I first signed for United,

I twisted my ankle
in my first-ever game,

so I was out for about six weeks.

So I got to know the city
a little bit better than

I probably should have.

And just as I got back to fitness,
I went out on the training pitch

and I saw the manager was
just waiting there for the players

to come out, and he said,
"Rio, let me talk to you, son,"

I said, "All right, boss?" He said,
"How are you enjoying the city?

"Is it all right? Have you
been out anywhere or anything?"

I said, "Yeah, not been out,
to be honest with you, Boss,

"I've just been to a couple of
restaurants and just taking it easy,

"just chilling out, really."
He said, "Oh, good."

He said, "Um, just make sure
we get off on the right foot.

"Um, I know you've been
overindulging in the nightclubs,

"going out here and there
and people tell me these things.

"You can't hide none of this
from me. Just to make sure now

"you know that I know
and it doesn't happen any more,

"if you want to stay at this club
for a long time.

"Go on. Go to train."

I was like, "Oh, my God!"

The only thing
I ever worried about was

the control of Manchester United.

The control of the players,
the dressing room.

That is paramount to me.

And I only worried
if I ever lost that control.

He controlled everything, I think.

The transfer policy, the decisions,
the players' contracts.

The staff, I think
everything was in his hands.

And I think
it's a fantastic way to do it,

especially if you are surrounded
by good people,

because when you say
you are in control,

it doesn't mean
that you don't share.

I think his belief is that in order
to lead a football team

effectively, you have to be
the biggest personality.

You can't have players
that are the bigger stars,

that are the bigger egos
in the dressing room.

This is probably also
the most controversial lesson

and I am honestly not entirely sure

whether we can translate this to
many other business settings and

I think the business world nowadays,
if you as a manager come in

and say, or as a CEO and say,
"I demand absolute control

"and anyone who steps
out of my control, they're fired",

that's a pretty harsh stance

and it might not work very well
in the business climate

that we have nowadays.

I never thought about these guys as
star players. It never bothered me.

And one thing
I did say to a star player,

"Remember one thing. Your reputation
is always on the line on Saturday.

"So the expectation is
bigger for you.

"You have to show you've worked as
hard as all the rest of the players,

"because that really
is a truly great player."

Motivation,
teaching the value of teamwork,

they were also crucial
to Ferguson's success,

even if his methods
could be a little unusual.

There was one photograph
you had on your office wall.

Let's just take a look at it.
I want to know why you had it.

There you are. Every year, I'd bring
the apprentices in to my office.

One day, I says, "Right, tell me,

"what do you think
of that photograph?"

And they'd look at it and,
of course, they're all twitching,

nervous, that I've set a trap.
And I said, "Well, there's 11 there.

"There's 11 members of the team."

I says, "They built the
Rockefeller Centre back in the '20s

"and they lost lives.

"One or two
would try to save them

"and lost their lives through that."
I says,

"There's no bigger sacrifice than
giving your life for a team."

I remember he had this picture
of 11 guys sitting in the wind

but without, er, how you say?

No ropes for safety. Exactly.

It quite surprised me
when I looked at the frame,

I said,
"Wow! It's unbelievable frame,"

and he say, "Cristiano,
this is what team should do it.

"We should be together, we should
work together, we should do it...

"Everything together,
if you want to win something,"

and he gave the example
all the time

because it was 11 guys
in that picture, so it was...

Fantastic memory.

I remember right now in my eyes,

I remember his office
and this frame.

There was another image you used
to use quite a bit, I think.

Oh, yeah. Geese. Yeah.

It's a fantastic story.

It's how they fly 4,000 miles
from Canada to some warm climate.

They go in two Vs.

And the ones at the front do most of
the flying, then they change over,

and if one goes away,
another two have to look after it.

The birds overhead flying and it
would be in the middle of training.

He'd stop the training, he'd go,

"Right, look. All look.
Have a look up to the sky."

So we'd be all looking up
at the sky, "See them birds."

And they all went like an arrow
formation. "That's teamwork."

You can just imagine 22 players
or 20-odd players just looking

up at the sky, thinking,
"What's he going on about?"

And I'd say to them, "These geese
fly 4,000 miles to get a bit of sun.

"All I'm asking you to do is
play 38 games to win the league.

"I don't think I'm asking too much."

Other teams in other sports wanted
one of Fergie's inspirational talks,

so when Europe was fighting
to retain the Ryder Cup,

the captain called in Sir Alex.

I was never one of the superstars,

so dealing with the likes of
Rory McIlroy and how he was going

to feel in that situation was
something that was alien to me

and he was the one that I thought
could really help me with that,

so, and I looked around,
I thought, you know,

"There's a guy that really got it
right, in terms of success."

Paul had spoke to me
a year before the tournament

and asked if I'd like
to contribute with the team.

So I did it,
had a motivational talk with them.

He spoke to the caddies
before he came up to the players,

which was great, and that was
a lot of fun for the caddies

and it made them very much included,

because the caddies were
a huge part of what we did.

The caddies. Goodness me,
that was fantastic.

There was a caddie called
Billy Forster, big Leeds United fan,

and he gave me stick.

He says,
"You got Cantona for nothing!"

As we were listening to the speech,
I could hear the laughter

coming from the caddies' room
and the players didn't know but

I could hear the laughter, so I knew
things were going well done there.

So when he came in, first of all,
he knew everybody's name

and addressed everybody personally.

Sir Alex told the Ryder Cup team
the story that had worked

so well at Old Trafford.

I did the bit about the geese. And
I think that was an important one.

The Ryder Cup team, although they
were favourites, it wasn't going

to win them the tournament, cos
the work ethic, the concentration.

They've got the talent,
it's the 12 best golfers in Europe

without question.

And they just need to focus
on the things

that are going to matter
in the game.

And that became a kind
of a something that we, as a team,

mentioned a number of times
during the week. And it was...

It was a phrase that we used,
"remember the geese".

And the ironic thing about it is,
when we won

and we were getting our photograph
taken, this perfect V of geese

flew right over their heads and
over the club house right behind.

I never changed as a human being,
as my style of management,

my decision-making, my discipline -
never changed that.

But I was always looking to change
to make things better.

Leadership is actually a balance
of listening, learning and leading.

You know, you have to listen

and absorb what are the lessons
going on out there.

You have to be prepared
to learn those lessons

and look at what the trends are
and what the changes are that

are happening in your country, in
your society, in your profession and

then you have to be prepared at
the end to take control and to lead.

Tony Blair says that leadership
is a balance of listening,

learning and leading.

Is that a good summary?

Yeah, I think these are accurate
statements, no doubt about that.

And you went
to different places to learn.

You went to the SAS on one occasion.

Years ago,
I took the team down there for a day

and we stayed overnight.

It was fantastic, because
you're speaking to a body of men

where the concentration levels
have to be 100% all the time.

So I was impressed with
what I saw down there.

Did the players identify with them,
or did they just...

Oh, they loved it. ..look at them
as if they were a different world?
They loved it.

I'll always remember,
they took us into the hostage room

and they put four players
with their heads down on the table

and all the rest of the players
were behind the rope, you know.

They just pulled me out.
Me, Paul Ince.

There's cardboard cutouts
and...we're the hostages.

The cardboard cutouts are the people
holding us hostage.

So we were just sat there
at the table - next minute,

the lights just went off.

We heard, "Get down! Get down!"
Which we instantly did.

And all of a sudden,
a smoke bomb comes in.

Everything goes dark and within
seconds, bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

A couple of bullet sounds and then
the lights come on and right

next to us was four or five
soldiers, SAS gear, night goggles.

I saw one of the soldiers with
a gun against Paul Ince's head

and Incy, I tell you...
HE LAUGHS

What did Incy do?
He went, "Aaaaargh!"

He absolutely, honestly,
he nearly died. It was brilliant.

Yeah, it was a great experience.

Great experience
and one that we never forgot.

GUNFIRE

What I hope Sir Alex and his team
would have seen and appreciated

was a very high degree of
professional skill and ability,

an utter dependence,
one upon another,

in other words, the team actually
brought to a very high pinnacle

of mutual dependence and respect.

The Ferguson formula produced
year after year of success

that one victory, one match,
one extraordinary moment

seemed to capture its essence.

Let's take a look at one night.

One night in Barcelona.

In 1999.

'Beckham crosses from the left.

'Right footed, it's a clear header
and it's in the net!

'Solskjaer has won the European Cup
for Manchester United!'

So United were 1-0 down,

going into injury time.

That gesture - was that disbelief?

I think it was a bit of that,
but when it went to 1-1,

Steve McClaren came to me and says,

"Well, we're back to four-four-two
in extra time."

I says, "No, the game's over.
They'll never recover."

And we scored the second goal.
They were gone.

Bayern were absolutely gone.

Those three minutes, in a sense,

are like the whole Ferguson formula
boiled down, aren't they?

Well, that particular team
was a team that never gave in.

And through that season,

they continually won games
in the last few minutes.

To win the league once
is very difficult.

But to do it over 26 years,
I think, is simply amazing.

I was able to plan
three, four years ahead,

because I was there long enough.

Even having won the coveted treble,

Ferguson set about dismantling
his team and creating another.

I think his greatest legacy
is that he had success over

a quarter of a century

and that he was able to build

and rebuild four or five
truly great teams.

For me, that is something
that no manager has matched.

The rebuilding of the organisation
was consistent

and often people, when
they've built a structure or got

an entity into a winning position,
they forget what took them there

and they stop doing the renovation,
they stop doing the repairs.

Sir Alex didn't stop

and he rebuilt the club
on perpetual four-year cycles.

You smile inside, because he say,
"You're still hungry.

"You still want to win. You're
still motivated to win trophies,

"to go to the trainings
with 62 years old, 63, 64, 65."

He is still hungry.
He still wants one more title.

He still want that team
play good every weekend,

so this is, for me,
it was a surprise.

But the lesson for a leader,

is at the very moment
you reach the top, is what?

When you're at the top...
It's like climbing a mountain.

You go up there
and the view is beautiful.

In normal circumstances,
you have to come down the mountain.

Not in football.

For Manchester United, you have to
stay up there and look at the view.

You can't come down.

Of course,
you don't win every league,

but the important thing
is to be challenging every time.

That was a big thing at Man United.
It was never about,

"Oh, we've won, let's celebrate
for days on end, months on end

"and really enjoy it."

You never got the sense
that we really enjoyed it

as much as we maybe should have,
now I've retired.

I think if I did enjoy it too much,

cos I did quite like
enjoying things,

maybe I wouldn't have been able
to climb the mountain again

so soon and so consistently.

You have some managers
that you work hard for

because you fear them

and you have other managers
that you work hard for

because you love them.

Where on this line is Sir Alex?

LAUGHTER

Some people are pointing.

Where on this line is he?
Yes, over there.

I think he's more towards
the love side.

ALL: Aw!

It's a fact.

OK, you need to stop talking
right now.

LAUGHTER

So, for you, was it more fear
or was it love or maybe both?

Both. Both.

In the beginning, it's kind of...

not scared but it's...

respectful.

You respect because you say,

"He can smile, but he can be angry
too, so let's do the right things."

Early on in my career,
definitely fear.

As a 17-year-old
seeing this figure

who was so intent on
discipline and quality.

But also fear from me,
fear of failure.

But then as the career
and the relationship grew,

more towards the love aspect.

There can be occasions
where fear came into it

and occasions with a bit of love.

But in the case of fear,

if you look at the way
Manchester United played,

the players played
and the teams played,

there was no way that fear
was in that team.

In terms of my time at United,

I often wondered whether
it was hate, fear, love.

I didn't pay great attention to it,

but I still was always concerned
about the balance of it.

I have to say this,
it's right there - respect.

'I think love or fear is
an inappropriate statement,

'quite frankly. It's respect.'

I think that people
should respect you.

If they don't respect you,
then you've lost it.

You've basically lost it.
It's as simple as that.

Ferguson was to win the respect of
his rivals as well as his own team.

I played against Man United
with Porto.

The respect started when in that
Man United-Porto,

the first time, the opposite manager
knocking my door

to congratulate my players.

Sir Alex walks in? Yeah.

That, in our Portuguese culture,
was...

It doesn't belong to our culture.

From that moment, I owe him respect

and I always gave him
my respect and my admiration.

Sir Alex retired in 2013
to be with his wife Cathy

following the death of her sister.

Champions!

He went out at the top after winning
his 13th Premier League title.

We kept it quiet. Nobody knew.
Not even my sons, nobody knew

until David Gill wanted to see me
on a Sunday afternoon.

He came along and he says,
"I'm retiring."

I said, "Phew, so am I."

LAUGHTER

I remember being
asked in the late-'90s

when I was a finance director
going around the City as,

presenting the results we were
quoting on the stock exchange then -

what's going to be happen
when Alex Ferguson retires?

What's going to happen?

Without doubt, when Alex left,
it was going to be...

It was a sea change for the club.

You don't have a person as important
and as influential and successful

as that for many, many years
without being a sea change.

With people and what's happened,

there was always
a bit of uncertainty.

He went out after a very
successful season and, I think...

Personally, I think
it was the right decision.

He told me a huge secret.

Not many people knew,

like, one month or two months before
the decision to be made to stop.

I know that he trusts me, because
if he doesn't, he doesn't tell me.

But I was... I was scared.

I was scared, so when finally
he informed the media

about his decision,
it was a sense of relief.

The man chosen to replace Ferguson
was no big name, no proven winner.

David Moyes survived
less than a year.

Many blamed Sir Alex
for appointing his friend.

Now one of the biggest issues
for any leader is when to go,

when to call it a day,
and how to plan the succession.

Did you get it right?

On the succession...

..when I'd announced my retirement,
do you honestly believe

that one man could decide
the future of Manchester United?

It's absolute nonsense.
There was a good process.

They're a professional
football club,

they know what they're doing,
the Glazers, David Gill.

Jose was going back to Chelsea,

Carlos Ancelotti
was going to Real Madrid,

Jurgen Klopp
had signed a contract at Dortmund,

Louis van Gaal was staying
with Holland at the World Cup.

Probably every manager in the world
looks at Man United as a huge club,

but I wanted to come to Chelsea.

We didn't bring that into the table,
because we were so open.

He knows so much about myself
that he knew

that, for almost a season,

I wanted to leave Real Madrid
and I wanted to come to Chelsea.

The other thing was
I took Pep Guardiola for dinner

in New York on the September

and had no idea
I was ever going to retire.

I said to him, "Give me a call,
tell me what you're going to do."

No answer.

I don't think
we made a mistake at all.

I think we chose
a good football man,

did a great job at Everton,
11 years there.

We picked the right man.

Unfortunately,
it didn't work for David.

Sometimes people say,
don't they, the critics?

"Well, it was impossible
for David Moyes

"because he'd inherited this team
and you'd stopped trying."

There's this continual thing
about we'd left an old team

and all that nonsense.

We won the league by 11 points.

It was unbelievable.

The average age of my teams
consistently in all the years,

the 20 years from when we started
winning the championship,

was 27-28. Every year.

If Ryan Giggs had retired
say six or seven years ago,

say he'd retired at 35...

it's quite likely that
I'd have made him my assistant

and quite likely he could move right
into the job with the experience of

being an assistant manager to me,

as he's doing in helping
Louis van Gaal at the moment.

But I would never ask
a player to quit.

He said that?

I mean...I obviously played
until I was 40.

It's obviously
a completely different job,

completely different mind-set
going from playing to coaching,

so it would have been great for me
personally to work under Sir Alex...

..to see
how he worked behind the scenes,

because you don't really see that
as a player.

We'd like to have spoken
to many managers, believe me,

because that's the process.

We'd like to have asked them
what they felt

about leaving a big club
to go to a bigger club,

to come to Manchester United.

But it wasn't there for us.

I think we did the best under
the circumstances we were in.

We have come to the end
of the session.

Let's give it up
for Sir Alex Ferguson.

APPLAUSE

Now, we've spent a long time
analysing your leadership

and the lessons for others.

How would you sum it up?

Well, I think consistency is...

I think it probably sums me up.

I think that in the
26-and-a-half years I was there,

I never changed my conviction
or my philosophy or my attitudes.

That consistency created players
who were consistent,

the club were consistent,

and that's what's made them the best
club in the world, without question.

My day job is in investment banking,

so I learnt a lot
from how he's dealt

with very highly-paid individuals.

What really came
across was his passion.

You could see how much
he loved what he does.

The key thing is
how to lead

very young teams
of very talented people

and being able to get
them to deliver the most.

Understanding about how
to manage a talent pipeline,

bringing players in.

His ability to constantly
renew himself.

I think that's a great lesson
in it for all of us.