Quiet Leadership: Winning Hearts, Minds and Matches

by Carlo Ancelotti

  Great players are great decision-makers. They know when to pass, when to shoot, when to defend, when to attack, all for the most benefit to the team. The manager of a very talented player has to convince the player to put this talent to the service of the team – this is how they can continue to develop.

  I have to find a way to keep this talent alive and efficient, but to deploy it within the system of the team. I don’t want them to sacrifice their unique quality – they have to keep that – and, equally, I have to make the team understand the special value that such players can add. If I didn’t have Ronaldo, for example, or I didn’t have Zidane, maybe I would play a different system.

  While I was at Parma I had the opportunity to buy Roberto Baggio. I always played a 4-4-2 system at the time, so I decided not to sign him because he wanted to play behind the striker, not in a 4-4-2. I realize now that I was wrong to reject him. I didn’t want to play him as a forward – I wanted to play him as an offensive midfielder. I refused to change my idea of football because I was not confident, I was unsure. I didn’t have the experience, I was a little bit worried, and in the end I knew I’d made a mistake. I should have worked with Baggio and found a way.

  I learned my lesson and appreciated the quality to be more flexible with systems when I went to Juventus. I had to change my idea of football to accommodate Zidane, building the system around him rather than forcing him into my preferred 4-4-2. Instead we played three in the back, four midfielders, Zidane in front, plus two strikers. We sacrificed at the back because I didn’t want to put Zidane on the left of a 4-4-2 where he was not comfortable. So, Zidane played behind the two front players. He played between the midfield and forwards, between the lines, when we were attacking and he helped – a little – with the midfield when we defended.

  With Cristiano Ronaldo I initially thought that the easiest way was to play him with Karim Benzema as a striker. That way, I could play James Rodríguez on the right, with Bale on the left and Modrić and another in the middle. People say that I had to play James because the president spent so much money on him after the World Cup, but for me, this was not a factor. The money does not matter once the player is at the club; I wanted James in the side because of his football qualities. He’s unselfish and a hard worker – a true professional.

  I was sure Cristiano could play centre forward without a problem and it wouldn’t affect his statistics, which he worries about a lot. I spoke with him about this and he said he was not comfortable, that he preferred to play outside, where he can see everything and cut in from a wide starting position. Who am I to argue? I did not want to change his position – how can I change the position of a player who scores sixty goals a season? So, I had to find a solution. I hadn’t played a 4-3-3 system very often before, but I had to try it so that Cristiano could play in the position that best suited his talents and, most importantly, from where his talents could be best used for the team.

  Andrea Pirlo at Milan was a great example of how a manager can listen to a player, work with him and develop him to add value to the whole squad. I was talking with him about how we had to put a squad together with great quality, because the owner wanted to play attractive football and I had to find someone to fill a deep-lying midfield position. Pirlo simply said to me, ‘I can do this.’ I was surprised at first, but then I could see the position in my mind and I thought, ‘Yes, you could be the right guy after all.’

  My worry was that for three years he had played as an attacking midfielder and I didn’t know whether he had the condition to change his position. There would be more work and he was not a physically powerful player. He would have to learn to understand how to play this position. I would need to discuss the new defensive responsibilities this role would have, but I didn’t want to scare him off straight away after he had come forward with the idea. Instead, I spoke mostly about the attacking demands of the role, how he would be the focal point of the team, our game-changer.

  Later, I was able to make him feel comfortable and dispel any doubts about his capacity to do it by explaining that the defensive situation was not so difficult. ‘I only need you to be in the right position,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to press, you don’t have to tackle, but you must track and be goal-side when it is necessary.’ I tried to take away any concerns he might have because I was sure that he could do the job. He didn’t have to be Claudio Gentile, after all.

  I explained to him his importance in being able to organize the play of the team, how playing deeper would allow him to have more space compared to other attacking midfielders. I tried to fill him with confidence, telling him he was the best one to play this position. Of course, if he had not been convinced about trying it, we wouldn’t have done it. Luckily, for me and for Milan and the national side – but not for England – he was excited to give it a go because he didn’t have a lot of space in his attacking role and he hadn’t played a lot in the last three years as an attacking midfielder – we had a lot of players in these positions. Pirlo was smart and recognized a potential new career path for himself, becoming one of the best deep-lying playmakers in world football and using his talents in the right role for the team.

  For me, the solution is never to sacrifice talent by diminishing it, but always to enable it to flourish, because this is always the best for the team. So, the balance must be not lowering the talent to fit the team, but rather raising the team to fit the talent.

  Succession

  In business, one of the things that great leaders try to do well is managing the exit of underperforming or redundant staff, handling it with care and sympathy. This is not always true in football, where the ruthlessness of management is often the focus of considerable criticism, but it should be, because it makes good business sense. You never know when you are likely to meet players again in your career. I am very conscious of this.

  There haven’t been many occasions when it has been necessary for me to discuss a player’s exit from the club. One occasion was near the end of my time at Madrid, when Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernández came to me to ask about his future. With him it was clear, so I told him, ‘I don’t know what my own situation is for the future, so I cannot give you an answer. If I stay, I want you to stay also, but that is not my decision.’ It is usually the decision of the president and the general director at the big clubs, and this will increasingly be the case as football becomes more corporate.

  I have some influence in this, of course. If I decide that a player is not in the team then that fact alone speaks to the general director and he will be thinking of the player as a liability, not an asset. That is when the president will be asking questions. Often, there are more reasons for why a player must leave than just his performance on the field.

  So, whether a player leaves the club is not mainly my decision, but the amount of playing time they get is, of course, very much my decision, even if sometimes the president might want it not to be so. Dropping people from the team and putting them on the bench or, even worse, in the stands, and replacing them with another player can be a very delicate thing to manage sometimes. I try to keep players I’ve dropped motivated by continually communicating with them and keeping an eye on them during training, but still, it can be tricky. The situation with Real Madrid’s legendary goalkeeper Iker Casillas was certainly a little bit difficult.

  When I arrived at Madrid, Casillas had not been playing under Mourinho, who had preferred to play Diego López. For me, it was a difficult choice because Casillas had such a big history with the club. In such a situation it is always best to fall back on the technical side: If you think that one is better than the other, you put that one in the team. I decided to make Diego López the first-choice goalkeeper and before the first game I told Casillas. I explained to him that, in my opinion, at that moment, Diego López was more ready than he was. He could not dispute this because López had had a full preseason, while Casillas had not.

  Maybe there are ten technical aspects for a goalkeeper and nine are
equal, but on this particular aspect, Diego López was just a little bit better. Or, because we are to play a high defensive line, this goalkeeper might be quicker than this one, and that would be the deciding factor. There was not a huge difference between the players, but it was my view that López was more ready than Casillas.

  Having made that decision, I didn’t then want to keep Casillas eternally second, because I knew that he was an important player for the club. In the end I decided to alternate them, with one playing in the league and the other in the cup competitions.

  The conversations with them were hard but fair. Before the start of the Champions League I thought about this for a long time and I decided to play Casillas in the competition. I spoke with Diego López before informing Casillas, telling him that it was important to keep a positive atmosphere in the squad. Once he had been told, only then did I speak with Casillas, telling him that I wanted to give him an opportunity to play. ‘I know you are a great goalkeeper,’ I said, ‘so I don’t think it’s correct for you to always have to be second-choice.’ He said, ‘I’m not happy, but I understand your decision. I’ll keep working.’ There are some conversations that are painful. Despite playing in the cup competitions he was still unhappy. He wanted to be number one in all competitions.

  In the end it meant both players were highly motivated. Both Casillas and López could legitimately say that they played in the most important games – López in La Liga and Casillas in the Champions League and Copa del Rey. Over the course of the season, Diego López played thirty-seven games and Casillas played twenty-four. López was genuinely humble, a serious player. He was OK about the Champions League, perhaps because he had a lot of pressure on him with Casillas hovering as number two. It was not so easy for him to be replacing a Madrid legend and so maybe my decision helped to take away some of the pressure from him.

  Succession – removing or demoting players or staff, on either a temporary or permanent basis – is difficult, and requires the delicate use of influencing skills and diplomacy to accomplish satisfactorily. Naturally, there will be fallout, but it is essential to remember that one day you might cross the path of that particular person as a boss, a peer or even as a subordinate, and you will be sure to reap what you have sown.

  TALENT: THE QUIET WAY

  Speak to your talent (players, workers) firstly and most importantly as people.

  Recruit to your values and for cultural fit. Always have in your mind your ‘future team’ as you go through the building process.

  Try to avoid intermediaries (like agents or even certain board members). The more layers, the more complexity, the more room for misunderstanding. Talk directly to the talent if possible. Your personal relationship with them is the best insurance policy you can have during moments of trauma.

  Coaching great talent is about fine-tuning, not major changes. The level of development needed by those who arrive at the biggest corporations should not be technical, but about managing the game or the business.

  You can’t control the talent. You can only provide the right information for them to achieve what they want to achieve; then it is up to them.

  Never forget that the talent will protect itself as its first priority. Talent chooses businesses as much as they are chosen by them.

  Recruit to your budget. This might mean that you have to give younger workers the chance. Don’t be afraid to do this; it should be seen as an opportunity.

  When you first engage with the people or talent you will work with forget about the ‘X and Os’ of how to do the job. Take time to understand them as people; what makes them who they are; who influences their life; who has shaped who they are. The ‘How do we drive this bus?’ comes after ‘Who made the driver of the bus?’.

  For the selfish talent help them to understand the satisfaction and reward that comes with serving the needs of others.

  Take the onboarding of talent seriously. The stronger your culture the harder it is for anyone to join and integrate. Be open, listen and show that you care about them and their family as people. It’s the start of the process of gaining ‘discretional effort’ from them.

  Your job is not to motivate the talent – they should find this within themselves – your job is not to demotivate them.

  In Their Own Words … The Players

  David Beckham on Carlo

  The first time I had any real interaction with Carlo was when he brought me in on loan at AC Milan. I’d spoken to Adriano Galliani at a more official level, but I’d also spoken to Carlo because I’ve always thought it’s important for a player to speak to the manager himself, just to make sure that he’s actually wanted at the club and in the team.

  The idea of going to Milan was first mooted by Fabio Capello, who was England manager at the time. I was playing for LA Galaxy and I was talking to him about my chances of being involved with the national side for the World Cup. He said to me, ‘You need to go on loan to be involved. You need the right level of football.’ When I asked his advice about where I should go, he said, ‘You should go to Milan. Carlo will look after you.’ That tells you everything you need to know about Carlo.

  My first meeting with Carlo was actually in Dubai, where the team were on their Christmas break. Obviously, I knew he was an amazing coach, but I wasn’t prepared for what a great guy he was as well. I think he’s a manager that any player would love playing under. He commands respect because he’s been so successful over so many years, but it’s not only that. He’s a nice guy and players just want to play and win for him – and I think that’s what Carlo has always been about. Don’t forget that not only is he a great manager, but he was a great player as well, with the trophies to show for it, and that doesn’t happen very often.

  When we talk about Carlo being a nice person you also have to understand that on the pitch he is very demanding. He always works the players hard because he knows what it takes to be successful.

  When I first arrived in Dubai to join up with the team, I knew that I was never going to be in the starting eleven because there were players who had been there for years and I was only there on loan. I hadn’t even thought about it, really. I worked hard and performed well in training and then, in the first game back after the Christmas period, against Roma, I was in the team. Obviously I was pleased, and my relationship with Carlo at that time was great. As a player, the worst thing is when the manager doesn’t recognize that you’re working hard, but Carlo had seen my efforts. From that moment I knew I would always be happy to play for this man.

  When it came to the end of my career in America and I had the opportunity to go to Paris Saint-Germain for six months it was not a difficult decision. The challenge of being able to help the team win their first trophy in nineteen years, the fact that it was Carlo asking and, of course, that Ibra was there as well meant there weren’t many reasons to say no.

  In the dressing room his approach is calm. He believes that players should be able to motivate themselves. Some managers shout and get angry as a way of showing authority, whereas Carlo has that authority just because you respect him so much. That calmness he inspires throughout the dressing room helps the players to be calm around him and want to play for him and that is one of his great strengths.

  There’s not one thing that you could surprise Carlo with on the tactical side of things. Firstly, because he’s Italian, and they take this part of the game very seriously there, and secondly, because he knows everything about the game that needs to be known. At Milan, we had constant video sessions and meetings about the other team and the individual players. He surrounds himself with great people and never leaves any stone unturned. That’s the type of manager he is and that’s why he’s had the success he’s had and will continue to be successful. He keeps doing things until they’re right.

  Another important thing about Carlo was that, when the team was going through a difficult time, he made it all about the manager, putting it all on himself. Even if there were things going on around the clu
b that were disturbing, he would never let it affect the players. He would take all the pressure off us and blame himself – that’s what great managers do.

  Carlo was very relaxed, but if you weren’t playing well, and if you weren’t doing the right things or what he’d said to do, then you would know about it. I suppose if there’s one thing that gets him angry it’s bad attitude – not being ‘serious’, as he says. Luckily for me, I’d been brought up by another manager who believes it’s all about attitude. Carlo says it’s about having the right impression of the game and your opponents as well. If you’re beating your opponents 3–0 or 4–0 and you’re showboating, then that’s something Carlo wouldn’t like. He’s a typical Italian, all about doing things in the right way.

  He definitely likes players to be ‘serious’ at the right times. I was lucky again that I was at a club like Manchester United, where if you were late by a minute then you got fined. Carlo has the same mentality. For him, you have to do things right to be successful and to be the best at the highest level in the game. You have to be professional; you can’t just drift through training while not working hard.