The importance of feedback

Grant Leboff: Damian, one of the important things that you talk about in your book is the importance of feedback and as business leaders you need to be able to listen to other people around you. I don’t think people’s impression, wrongly I think, of Sir Alex is he was one to get lots of feedback from others, but actually that’s not true and you give a really good example in the book of some of the signings he made. I think Steve Bruce and Eric Cantona, and Reynaldo as well, and how he took feedback from that so then if you can perhaps tell us a bit more about that. Sort of set the scene.

Damian Hughes: Yeah, very well. Well, Ferguson was a huge advocate about listening to the people that really count in your organization. He would frequently go and make time to talk to his own players about opposition players that proved particularly difficult, or had impressed them. The 3 example are Steve Bruce was back in 1986 when it was Bryan Robson, he was captain at the time, in a conversation that had said I’ve seen this guy at Norwich that’s really impressed us. He became a seminal figure in Ferguson’s captain to succeed Robson.

The Eric Cantona one came from a conversation with these two centre halves, Gary Pallister and Steve Bruce again that told him that Cantona was the opposition player that provided most obstacles for them.

The third one was Reynaldo, 17 when he played sports in Lisbon and Ferguson said sit on the bench. The players were urging him, you need to sign this guy, this guy’s exceptional. He was always willing to listen to his own players because he trusted that judgement and when it came to them looking at potential players that he was going to sign. Roy Keane was another one that his own team had said to him, ‘This guy’s exceptional.’ Therefore, he moved very quickly because he trusted the judgement of those that were close to him.

Grant Leboff: That’s a really important lesson, isn’t it? Even someone as successful as Sir Alex didn’t just do it on his own, he used other people around him and I think one of the points you was to make is that his use of assistants and how he used those. It wasn’t just a question of, he listened to his players, which it’s vital listening to your staff, but also he brought good people in around him didn’t he?

Damian Hughes: Very much. There’s a study that indicates that most Nobel Prize winning scientists, the one distinguishing factor is the eclectic group of people that they work with that gives them a lot of feedback. There’s a great book recently by the journalist Walter Isaacson looking at technological innovators and the principle holds true there, that the more people you surround yourself with that will give you feedback, the better the final product is.

Ferguson was great. During his 26 years he had 8 assistant managers that supported him at different stages of the club’s evolution. For example, when he needed a draconian task master, he brought Archie Knot from Aberdene with him. When he needed a more nurturing figure to develop the younger players, Brian Kidd was brought in to assist. When he needed somebody that could operate a really fine nuanced technical level, Carlos Quieroz the Portuguese coach was brought in.

Now, if you want a comparison of his next nearest successful manager, Arson Wenger, during his first 19 years in charge of Arsenal he had just one assistant, the loyal deputy Pat Rice. Whilst I’m not suggesting that Pat Rice wasn’t good at what he did, what Ferguson was great at doing was bringing in different people that he felt could help him meet those different challenges and give him the constant feedback that like you described Grant, is just so important.

Grant Leboff: Yes, it’s very, very interesting as a business leader to think about yourself and I think Richard Branson’s somewhat famous for surrounding himself with great people and he’s got lots of different businesses so, therefore, lots of different people and I think it’s a really good lesson for business leaders to think about yes, they’ve got teams, but who else should they be relying on? Is it fluid enough to be giving them that vibrancy and ideas because we’re living in such competitive times. Of course football’s, therefore, a good analogy because it’s so competitive as well.

Damian Hughes: Well, you used Sir Richard Branson as an example and I’m fortunate enough that I’ve met Sir Richard on a number of occasions and he’s helped me with one of the books I did. A book called, ‘Liquid Thinking.’ One of the things that he talks about there is very much a Ferguson trait that we’re describing, constantly willing to listen to people that you feel don’t have an agenda that’ll tell you what you want to hear, tell you what you need to hear. Any business leader can learn from that lesson.

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