Quiet Leadership: Winning Hearts, Minds and Matches

by Carlo Ancelotti

  Maybe this was because at AC Milan or Paris Saint-Germain he didn’t have the players that he had at Real Madrid – skilful players, driven players. I think that the most important thing is concentration. When you concede goals at set pieces this is about concentration, not tactics. If a guy is faster than you and jumps higher than you, this is not tactics. So, it’s about concentration, and Carlo was very aware of this. Obviously, he is an organized person and he is very flexible. If he didn’t have the quality of player that we have at Real Madrid, maybe he would have spent more time on tactics.

  Where Carlo and Ferguson were very family oriented, José Mourinho was a little bit different, more distant. Carlo was closer to us and took more care of the players. What all three of these managers have in common, though, is their huge knowledge of the game. The three of them are very smart and they are all winners, it’s as simple as that. Even with all that knowledge, the key for them is the relationships they build. Each is aware that only by having great relationships can you get the best from the players. That is what is special about them. I have played for and with the best so I have been blessed.

  You can tell how good a guy is when he is on the training pitch. In my opinion, Carlo is one of the best out there. He has a sixth sense about when players are tired or bored, or want to work more or less hard. When Zizou [Zinedine Zidane] arrived with us after Benítez, the training was very similar to that with Carlo. Zizou understood that for him, as a player, Carlo’s sessions had been enjoyable and valuable, so he employed similar methods. Zizou is a smart guy and he took a lot of ideas from his time with Carlo both as a player and as his assistant here at Madrid. The most important thing is that Zizou has tried to keep the same mood as Carlo.

  Carlo would joke a lot, sometimes about being angry or to make you worry. He would sometimes say to me, ‘Cristiano, tomorrow you’re going to rest.’ Everyone knows I want to play every game, so I would be upset and say, ‘What are you talking about?’ He would tell me I must rest and we would go back and forth and then he would say, ‘You must rest at three o’clock tomorrow … but when the game starts at four, you can play.’ And then he would laugh.

  Carlo knows when it’s time to have fun and when it’s time to work and be serious. He always finds the right balance because of his knowledge, his experience. He’s an intelligent coach because he cares and wants the best for you.

  Part Two

  * * *

  THE CORE BUSINESS

  Chris Brady

  Fortune magazine’s cover story for 21 June 1999 read ‘Why CEOs Fail’. The simple answer was: by not getting things done. The article argued that leaders of major businesses were overly focused on ‘strategy, missions and visions’ and were paying insufficient attention to results (also ignoring their colleagues who were critical in delivering those results). As Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines succinctly put it, ‘Strategy, overdone; doing stuff, underdone; our strategy, do stuff.’

  When Lou Gerstner arrived at IBM, charged with sorting out the mess left by the outgoing CEO, he famously stated: ‘The last thing IBM needs right now is a vision.’ Gerstner removed few of the existing senior team but, significantly, he did replace the HR director. Gerstner understood that successful CEOs are invariably those who are interested in people. As the Fortune article concludes, ‘The motto of successful CEOs: People first, strategy second.’

  I spent ten years researching employee engagement; the results were published in 2007 in The Extra Mile, a book I co-wrote with David MacLeod. We found that concentration on getting things done, and managers who can deliver the ‘people first’ mantra, are crucial to the success of any business. So, as we have investigated the core business of football – what actually happens on the pitch – it is refreshing to know that Carlo Ancelotti and his quiet leadership are the embodiment of those beliefs. He is unwaveringly interested in and committed to the people under his leadership.

  The new skills-based football economy chews up the talented, both players and managers, like no other; understanding that and managing it with dignity is also an Ancelotti trait. When speculation about his job at Madrid was rife, he was asked at a press conference about his future. He replied:

  I’d like to stay, but I don’t know if I will be here next season … it’s not up to me to give myself a grade for this year, it’s up to others. I know very well how things are in football. I don’t have to talk. If the club is happy, I can continue; if not, they will have to take a decision. The club has the right to change coach if it is not happy.

  This statement was not bravado or obfuscation; it was genuine. Ancelotti understands, probably better than anybody working in the most cut-throat businesses, the transient nature of employment in any talent-dependent industry.

  Those who are loath to regard football as an industry should pay attention to the words of Real Madrid general director José Ángel Sánchez, who says: ‘We are a content producer.’ In other words, Madrid and the other behemoths of modern sport have become commercial enterprises with sports clubs attached. This concept is validated by other distinguished names in both business and sport. Thomas J. Watson, the founder of IBM, once said, ‘Business is a game, the greatest game in the world if you know how to play it,’ while Clive Woodward, English rugby’s only World Cup winning coach, put it like this: ‘There’s a complete parallel with running a successful company as there is running a successful sports team; you need the same skills.’ Football really is the quintessential model for modern talent-dependent industries.

  In this section Carlo reflects on all aspects of the core business, from culture to responsibilities, from dealing with the hierarchy to the shape of the working environment, from handling the talent to creating the product and, finally, to understanding the analytics and psychology that will comprise the next generation of competitive advantages.

  2. Culture

  The Family

  Nothing is as important as family. In football there are two forms of family. There is my personal set of trusted lieutenants and staff, people I have worked with over the years, sharing the good times and the bad – people I have great trust in and respect for. They are my football family, and I will talk about these people shortly. Then there is the club as a family.

  When I joined Milan as manager, it was like coming home for me. The club is set up exactly like a family, despite being one of the grandest football teams in the world. You have your own room at Milanello, the training ground, and the kit man, the other staff – they have been there a very long time. There is a restaurant at Milanello and it’s not a buffet, as it is at Chelsea and Real Madrid, but a proper restaurant with a waiter who comes to speak with you as a friend. The waiters at Milanello are mostly very old – they too have been there a long time – and the atmosphere is very easy. When I started to work on the organization and setup at Paris Saint-Germain, introducing a restaurant was one of my first priorities. I knew from my time in Milan how important it was for the players to have meals together, to help form a tighter unit. I wanted to bring the family environment I knew so well from Milan to Paris, and mealtimes are an important part of family life. This is how I like the culture of the club to be and I consider the family atmosphere fundamental to success.

  From the manager to the kit man, everyone needs to be part of this family and to work towards the shared objectives. The key to the success of any organization is to align the whole family in the same direction. The players are an integral part of this and it is not helpful if there are dissenters who are working against the spirit of the family or who do not consider themselves to be part of it. It is my job to make sure that the family values, whatever they might be, are honoured and respected.

  It was easy for me, coming back to Milan, having been a successful player for them and the club being so familiar to me, and sometimes I think that it might have been a problem for Milan in that they were maybe too grateful to someone who played such a part in the history of the club.

  So this
is the culture of the club – a family setup. At other clubs it can be different. At Juventus it was like a company for me. When a club is like a company my relationship with my superiors is more formal. During my time at Juve we did not have our own training ground and facilities; we did not have our own ‘home’. However, my experience at Juventus was still a good one in my mind. The results were not great during my time at the club, but you cannot always control the results. This does not mean that my relationship with the team was bad. The things over which I had control were working. Maybe the fans might not agree, but I cannot control them either.

  It’s important that the manager is a cultural fit for the club, as his job is to be an example for this culture, to maintain its standards and see that it is observed throughout the organization. For Milan, I was, of course, a natural fit, but at Juventus I was not. The family environment is better suited to who I am, and it is always easier to work in an atmosphere akin to who you are. Business guru Peter Drucker said, ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast,’ and I agree. Without an empathy with the culture success can still be achieved, but it can also be fleeting, hard to sustain.

  Wherever I go, I am always myself. My personality or style does not change, and ultimately I am hired for who I am. The prevailing atmosphere in the club when I arrive dictates the amount of time and work it will take me to achieve the atmosphere I desire, to create my family. This is why sometimes the most important job is to build this family atmosphere if it doesn’t exist naturally. At a club like Chelsea, for example, it was also more like a company, but I saw it as an opportunity to build a family there.

  When hiring leaders it is essential that the people hiring them know exactly the role they want the new leader to play – is it to maintain the culture or to create a new one? Interestingly, it is said that Sir Alex Ferguson was hired to revive a culture that had waned at Manchester United. Having done so, he maintained his success by constantly reinforcing that culture, continually referencing the history and tradition of the club.

  Of course, a manager can change their approach to fit the demands of the club, but it is easier to fit the coach to the club than the other way around – unless, of course, you want a change or there is a big reason to abandon your beliefs. In Madrid, for example, I am not sure that Mourinho was right for them and maybe even the club was not sure, but they were desperate to win and break the stranglehold of Barça. If, for example, a big club wanted to break the monopoly of their biggest rival and they thought they could only achieve that with a manager who had already been successful at another club, but who maybe didn’t fit culturally, they will in some cases overlook the fact that he won’t adapt culturally, because the success is the top priority. When the club employed me they hired me they knew that I could adapt, but also I was, perhaps, closer to the Madrid that Florentino Pérez wished to resurrect. For him, the galácticos concept was crucial, and he believed my skill in forging relationships with the players was central to handling the different needs of the high-profile and strong personalities in that dressing room.

  He was correct to believe this. However, the problem is that clubs rarely do enough interviewing and due diligence to be able to know everything about the incoming candidate. I believe Pérez made the correct decision when hiring me, but it is not always the way in football. In my career there was only one club – apart from Milan, who already knew me – where I was asked, ‘How do you manage? How do you work with the players? What is your style of training? How would you deal with this situation and that situation?’ This was Chelsea. I had ten meetings with Chelsea, which is the correct way to do business for me, but it is certainly not normal in football. All clubs should take note of this approach.

  The likes of Pep Guardiola and Hungarian coach Béla Guttmann have said that three years is the natural cycle for managers, and my experience with my leadership arcs, one club aside, certainly backs this up. However, sometimes managers, players, coaches and workers find a natural home. Valeriy Lobanovskyi at Dynamo Kiev, Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, Arsène Wenger at Arsenal, me at Milan – in these cases the relationship can last much longer than the three years. The manager has found a home and the club has found the right cultural fit. People say that this type of longevity will never happen again and it’s easy to see why in today’s game, but if a manager can find a home that is right for him and the club feel the same way, then who knows where it could lead?

  International Culture

  I have managed great teams all over Europe, highly diverse, multinational groups of players and backroom staff. Working in such an environment presents a unique set of linguistic challenges. Of course, you could say football is a language we all have in common – but it is vital that we are literally speaking the same language too.

  I was a foreigner in England, as well as in Spain and France, so I forced myself to learn the language. I have done this at each of the clubs abroad I have managed and I will always do this because it is so important. I need to communicate with the players and the media in the language of the country and I need to make the commitment to show I am serious about adapting and fitting in to a new way of life. For me personally it is important to learn the language as a way into the culture.

  I expect the same of the players and I see it as a way to measure their professionalism. Of course, if you give me a choice between a player who scores every week or one who learns the language, then I choose the former. Sometimes a player can be useful enough on the pitch not to need words. However, I want both from the player. Making the effort to learn the language enables the player to form better relationships with the other players and staff, and in turn the players and staff appreciate the effort being made to adapt and fit in. Bothering to learn the language is a reliable indicator of the commitment of the player not just to playing the game, but to flourishing in the new environment. This is possibly why English players underperform in foreign leagues. However, while the language was clearly a problem for Gareth Bale in his first year at Madrid, it did not affect his performances and it has obviously improved over time. Maybe the exception that proves the rule.

  When I was managing Milan, I would have the players speak Italian – nothing else – so that we were all speaking the language of the country. Of course, it’s more difficult now because you have players from so many different countries and they often like to socialize and speak in their national groups. In France we had Italian players and Argentinian players who spoke Italian together, but at the beginning there was a problem because the French players only spoke French and a natural segregation would form.

  You have to address this early in your relationship with the players and get them to understand that cliques are not acceptable. I would manoeuvre them to speak together by having a dinner together and then changing the seating arrangements, sitting people next to others they wouldn’t normally socialize with.

  The trick is to push the groups together gradually. At Madrid, we put people together at the tables at mealtimes specifically to get them integrated from the beginning. We put new signing Toni Kroos, who is German, close to his countryman Sami Khedira, and then after a certain point put Kroos close to Sergio Ramos and so on. The other thing that I do at clubs is to organize dinners for the players away from the training ground, where they can relax and get to know each other a bit better.

  Unfortunately, it can’t all be done over mealtime, and a lot of my approach at Paris was spent just gently influencing the players at the training ground, where we spent most of our time. I would subtly split up the groups, mix them up with others. I tried not to force these things but to suggest, to influence – this is the quiet way. I have read the work of the psychologist Robert Cialdini, a good Italian name, on influencing. He talks about the effect of things like consistency, reciprocation and likeability on persuading people. I believe that he has exactly the right ideas.

  The importance of players and staff being comfortable with the language is central to quickly u
nderstanding the culture of the country and the club. For the business community this is probably even more significant than in football, where player turnover is high and their impact might not be as reliant on the language. If business staff are required to operate in countries with particularly difficult languages for Western people to learn, such as China or an Arab nation, mastering the language, which could take as long as eighteen months, can be inefficient. In such cases there will still be cultural behaviours that can be studied, learned and used to help the person become integrated in that environment.

  This same approach is useful in any country if you want to stay and make a success of your time there, as it helps you to understand the culture, the professionalism and how the work ethic is seen in the eyes of the players. These deeper cultural differences are just as important as the language. If you go to work in Spain, for example, you have to follow the culture of Spain. They are used to having lunch at three o’clock, so you have to respect this and you should adapt to it. If I can become assimilated into the culture then the players should be able to do the same.

  In England, the professionalism of the British players on the pitch is a given. Of course, you’re never sure what happens off the pitch, but on the pitch, they are really professional. We know that not all players are created equal; it is the same with football leagues. Each individual league is made up of different nationalities, and even within those nationalities there are cultural differences. In my career I have found it natural to be immersed in a melting pot of cultures in places such as Paris. In fact, such experiences are a big reason I have chosen to work in so many countries and why I’m looking forward to the next adventure in Bavaria.