How to manage outrageous talent

Everyone wants a genius on his side, but managing it requires a special set of skills. Nowhere is this more visible in the world of football and few have successfully managed more top-flight talent th

THE MANAGER
INSIDE THE MINDS OF FOOTBALL'S LEADERS
Author: Mike Carson
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Pages: 320
Price: Rs 499

Jose Mourinho can reasonably lay claim to being one of the best coaches in world football. The jury of his peers would agree: both Pep Guardiola and Diego Maradona have gone on record as naming him the world's best coach, while Arrigo Sacchi of Italy has called him 'phenomenal'.

Famously nicknamed 'The Special One', Mourinho came to English public attention as the architect of Roman Abramovich's Chelsea, moving to Stamford Bridge in 2004 following Primera Liga and Champions League success with Porto. With Chelsea he won the Barclays Premier League in his first two seasons and the FA Cup in his third, but Champions League success eluded him and he moved in 2008 to Internazionale in Milan. There he won his second Champions League title during his second season, sweeping all before him to achieve the outstanding treble of domestic league, domestic cup and European league. In 2010, he moved once more - to Real Madrid, where he won the Copa del Rey in his first season and La Liga in his second. This title success was record-breaking in that real Madrid reached 100 points, scoring 121 goals in the process. June 2013 saw him return for a second spell in charge at Chelsea.

Mourinho has arguably encountered, encouraged and managed more varied and outrageous football talent than any other coach. He strides across the landscape of modern football in its new, global era, recruiting the best and motivating them to deliver on their excellent potential, and has led the greatest footballing talents in the world.

 

  His Philosophy

 

Mourinho is convinced that great leadership is founded first on great knowledge. He is flattered by the suggestion that if you can lead at the top of professional football, you can lead anywhere - but does not necessarily believe it. "I think one of the most important qualities in someone that leads is that the ones that you lead recognise in you a big knowledge of the situation. So you have to know a lot about the area you are working in. I'm not saying that if you know a lot about football you can automatically be a leader in football. I am saying if you don't know a lot about football you cannot lead. That's the main point for me." Hot on the heels of knowledge though comes a profound understanding of people. "I have to say we are speaking about men. We are speaking about human beings and human sciences. So is football a sports science? I think it is probably a human science and not a sports science."

The Challenges
Confronted with the undoubted challenges of managing outrageous talent, Mourinho simply counts his blessings: "The toughest thing is when you don't have that talent! I have never had a problem with working with that special talent, never, I never had that. I never understood when people say that is a problem, or you can have a special talent but not two or three or four. I want 11 special talents! Maybe I was lucky, maybe I wasn't, but it was never a problem."

 

Mourinho has a point. Why would anyone not want to have a genius in their organisation? And yet questions can arise: is this person just too much trouble? Is he good value for effort expended? Or will managing him take too much of my focus, to the detriment of the rest of the team? Of course, Mourinho is used to leading a team full of star talent - and that provides a different landscape and subtly different challenges from the case where someone is head and shoulders above their peers. Nonetheless, he has mastered the art - and, like many other football leaders, has achieved great results with world-class talent. …But what does he actually do that is so successful?

What imbalance?
The Mourinho approach to the imbalance question is typically robust. One senses there is no question of his feeling less talented or somehow awed by genius. Logically, why would a man of his track record and ability have a problem striking a healthy, balanced relationship with talented footballers? And not does he see himself as in any way superior. They are professionals together: his role is to lead, theirs to play.

His skill at handling genius became apparent during his first spell at Chelsea, where he struck up a series of friendships that anchored an array of world-class talent. He arrived at Stamford Bridge aged only 41: a comparatively small age difference from his players. "In terms of mentality, I'm not much older than them - I think I have the ability to put myself at their level. I think it is important to understand. The more you understand them the more you can lead them - there is leadership and leadership, as you know. I never liked the leadership where the boys say, 'He's my leader, I have to respect him.' I prefer them to say, 'I respect him and he's my leader.' It is a completely different thing. They can say, 'I do that because he tells me to do that and I have to.' I prefer them to say, 'I believe in him so much, and trust him so much that everything he says I want to do!' I prefer much more this kind of empathy."

It is a commonly held belief in many cultures that friendship precludes effective leadership. But closeness to the players has always been a defining characteristic for Mourinho. "Of course, many people say we can't be friends with the players. I say exactly the opposite. If you are not friends with the players you do not reach the maximum potential of that group. You have to be friends with them, but they have to understand that between friends the answer is never the answer they are expecting, or the answer they want to hear."…

Mourinho gives an example of a symbolic action that betrays very clearly the value a manager really attaches to his players: "A story from the past. I think there are two ways of travelling with the players in a plane: you travel having a business class where everybody goes in business class , or if there is no space for everybody then the players go in business class and you go in economy class with your staff. …Some time ago a coach arrived in a club and… the first thing they did was to travel executive for the manager and the staff with the players in economy. I was thinking, 'Bad start' - and I was not wrong. One of the things you must remember as a leader is your people are more important than you."

There is a compelling humility about a leader who serves his people - and inspiration when he does it with confidence, unconcerned by any imbalance.

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(Excerpted with permission from Bloomsbury Publishing)