Can Museums Learn from Alex Ferguson?

Many business leaders have looked with envy at the phenomenal success of UK soccer manager Alex Ferguson. Winning the small matter of 13 Premier League titles, 10 Community Shields, 5 FA Cups, 4 League Cups, 4 Scottish Cups, 3 Scottish Premier League titles and 8 European trophies of various types. Having started with the modest Scottish First Division title with St. Mirren in 1977 you can safely say 'the boy done good'.

He has recently published a book called, 'Leading: Learning from Life and My Years at Manchester United'. It was written with Michael Moritz the Chairman of Sequoia Capital (major investor in Google, Yahoo etc.). The book tries to draw general management lessons from his time in football. The question is can we in museums benefit from his experience and knowledge?

Both Ferguson and Moritz spoke at Stanford Graduate School of Business and offered 5 'lessons in leadership'.

1. Be consistent in imposing discipline
Consistency is the essence of leadership

2. Embrace your entire team
What he means is, know the names of your staff/volunteers and say good morning

3. Firing is hard - do it right
Be honest during the process

4. Think long-term
Not a luxury many football managers have these days, but try and look beyond the next quick win

5. Lean forward
What he means is the importance of body language


This is all very sensible, but my reaction is -  IS THAT IT? All that success, all that experience, all the obvious leadership in essence all boils down to treating people like human beings and thinking ahead.

So the actual lesson, is that what he says is very sensible, but the secret of success, is just that - a secret. Nobody actually knows the answer. We all know best practice, but that mixture of timing, good luck, sound judgement and that 'controversial penalty in the 4th minute of injury time' all play a part.

Can we in museums learn anything. Absolutely! Be consistent, be honest, say good morning and project positive messages through your body language. If you do this will your museum flourish? Probably not, but it will certainly be a better place to work.

Yet the most important lesson we in museums can learn from Alex Ferguson is his spectacular failure at succession planning. Ferguson encouraged long-term thinking, but not beyond his own tenure (a failure museum managers may be sometimes guilty of). If Ferguson had got that bit right Manchester United would still be winning things, or even still qualifying for the Champions League. For small and voluntary museums this is a key component of their museum planning - so do not follow the Ferguson example and nominate a fellow Scot with a similar leadership style, but a manager that did not (or could not) follow the organisation's vision.

Football managers rarely have the luxury to think too far ahead (Ferguson was that rarest of managers who earned the right to work until retirement).  For most managers the ink is still wet on the contract before they are shown the door. Short-termism is a curse in sport where immediate results heavily prey on a manager's thinking. So his advice to fellow football managers may illicit a hollow laugh in response. But the thing for us in museums is to think long term,  We mustn't not follow football's example or managers would be out on their ear at the first sign of TripAdvisor criticism of the latest exhibition.

We have to keep remembering that the timescale museums work to is 'for ever'. Fundamentally we are charged with managing society's material culture in perpetuity. Therefore we should not have just 3 year or 5 year plans, we need 100 year plans or even 200 year plans. We need to think in even longer terms than we actually do. The Museums Association strategic plan takes us to 2020. I think their plan should be to 2200.

So what have we learnt?

Do not follow football's example, we need to follow our own path -  a longer path, but to make sure we are nice people on that journey.

Inspirational or Insufferable? Are motivational quotes all they are cracked up to be?

This week I have been mostly reflecting on the inspirational mug I purchased for our curator (see blog 5th March 2016), 'Move Fast and Break Things'. The point being this is incredibly bad advice for a curator. So I've been looking again at the pearls of wisdom of the great and good and questioning whether they constitute inspirational advice that inspires us to greatness, or is it all just the Emperor's new clothes. On balance I've decided they are all just insufferable egoists (like me) and its best policy to ignore them.

Let's start with the seminal, 'How To Win Friends and Influence People' by Dale Carnegie.

"It's a proven fact that it's the sweetest sound to a person's ear is the sound of their own name."

Really Dale? Dale don't you think that constantly saying Dale to your face might begin to annoy you Dale? Dale? Dale where are you going?

Well Dale, Have you got any other useful advice?

"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all."

As I start trying to strike a match on this bar of soap, how long do I need to keep doing it Dale? Surely we achieve more by creativity, good planning and operating within budget. Hopelessness cannot be the ideal place in terms of organisational health (its true home is in Hollywood movies and its actual home is in small local authority run museums in the UK).

A contemporary of Carnegie was Napoleon Hill, another early guru of 'self-help', what advice did he have?

"Action is the real measure of intelligence."

Never put that idiot in a china shop with a hammer. Surely its not the amount of action that is important it is the appropriateness of the action that would be a better measure of intelligence.

Mr. Hill seems to be concerned with 'the physical'.

"Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting."

All I can say is "It's just a flesh wound!" and "I'll bite your legs off!" © Monty Python 1975


How about someone a little more recently deceased? Zig Ziglar (d. 2012) famous U.S. motivational speaker (note I'm just using dead people as an example, just in case I get sued)

Let's try this for size.

"People don't care how much we know until they first know how much we care."

What bobbins! I am more than happy to 'pick the brains' of people who know stuff regardless of their attitude to me and I certainly am asked for my knowledge by visitors/volunteers/staff/ fellow professionals who I don't give a tinker's cuss about. What sort of world would it be if we cared about people rather than knowledge (viz. museums in 21st Century)?

Anything else Zig?

"Speakers who talk about what life has taught them never fail to keep the attention of their listeners."

Has this man been responsible for more interminable presentations than any other? Be relevant and engaging not self centred. I'm nodding off just writing this.

Anything alliterative Zig?

"Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude."

How many seriously deluded people have you met who believe this? Certainly make the most of what you have, but you can't make the most of what you haven't got. How many Olympic high jumpers are there under 5 feet tall? Your attitude AND your aptitude will be more significant.

What about us leaders?

"It is true that integrity alone won't make you a leader, but without integrity you will never be one."

Nixon, Clinton, Bush, Blair, de Guzman, Boesky, Milken, Ebbers, Andersen, Fuld, Hayward, Goodwin and God help us Trump? I could go on. What we wish to be true and what is true are two entirely different things.

Anything else Zig?

"You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want."

Did you try that yourself Zig? How many times have you helped someone and got nothing in return? How many times have you helped someone and got everything you want in life in return? Extreme selflessness exists only in mental hospitals as it is an attitude that cannot function in modern society.

This soundbite approach by Mr. Ziglar without thought to the possible consequences is dangerous.

So what have we learned? Bring your own intelligence and common sense to theses motivational and self improvement books.


I'm indebted to an article by Geoffrey James in Inc. Magazine which forms the basis of this blog

Museum Sustainability:a case of sex and drugs and rock n' roll?

We continue to wring our hands at the funding crisis in British museums. How do we make our own way in the world where the central and local government is at best uncaring or at worst openly hostile? We obligingly reduce costs, become more entrepreneurial, sell Egyptian statues etc.

The answer came to me in the form of a fixed penalty notice that dropped on my doormat last week. Apparently I had driven up a restricted road and been caught by an automatic number plate recognition camera. I had missed a whole series of signs warning me. In my defence, how can I possibly read every sign when drunk 'phoning my mates at 1 in the morning driving at 90 miles an hour without my seat belt on? Some may call me irresponsible, I call it a miracle of multitasking.

Anyway, I took my punishment as ungraciously as I could and set about watching as many 'Police Interceptors', 'Traffic Cops' and 'Thieves & Thugs:Caught on Camera' programmes as I could to justify my belief that I was unfairly picked on by the fascist forces of law and order when they should be out catching real criminals (the impact of their behaviour is currently closing our museums). As a side note the sheer high tech investment and police numbers spent trying to catch a 15 yr. old scallywag buzzing round the local park on a moped, or Lithuanians rummaging about in charity clothing bins, is mind boggling. The Crown Prosecution Service will then not pursue the case due to lack of evidence.

So what have I learnt?

1. Driving without insurance will get your car crushed
2. Being found with drugs on you will result in a street caution.
3. Finding a cannabis farm in your loft will get them repotted in the Blue Peter garden
4. Anything that doesn't involve a high speed pursuit across the country, the writing off of any number of police cars and street furniture will result in 20 hours of community service.
5. They never discover large financial fraud.

What has this got to do with museums I hear you ask? I've learnt that crime pays. More specifically some crimes aren't punished. However I would hesitate to recommend museum managers from starting a programme of massive financial mismanagement (no more than usual anyway) as that would negatively affect museum sustainability. No, be more entrepreneurial, with selective, 'heritage' events.

The answer, as I have found constantly throughout my life is sex and drugs and rock n' roll (although not necessarily in that order, and not necessarily including the sex bit, or the drugs).

1. Sleepovers aren't just for kids. Remember only street prostitution is illegal, so keep it indoors. Historical re-enactments can be hands on, it will involve partnership working (local massage parlour?), raise health awareness issues and attract the over 45 male audience (constantly underrepresented in visitor demographics). Although how well believed errant husbands will be by their wives when they say, 'I'm just popping out to the museum'. Yet it will be true.

2. The really difficult audience is the male 16-24 audience. The answer - laudanum (a very morish tincture of brandy, herbs and opium). Again it raises awareness of health issues, encourages partnership working (I've heard the Russian mafia is particularly enlightened in this respect), and solves the question of how to encourage repeat visitors. So when young Johnny is arrested he demands his one phone call is to be to the local museum you know you are onto  a winner.

3. Rock and Roll. If One Direction and Justin Beiber have taught us, is that spotty boys with interesting hair are guaranteed to relieve pre-pubescent girls of all their pocket money. So get the boy who has the weekend paper round to come and sing in the foyer and watch yet another underrepresented demographic come charging through the door screaming. Given that poor standards of spelling amongst the youth of our nation. A temporary 'No Direction' exhibition (highlighting the museum's new strategic plan) or 'Just In Beaver' exhibition (focussing on the museum's latest acquisition into our natural history collection) will have them flocking in.

Don't say that museums are unsustainable, just say that museums that we have conceived them in the past are unsustainable. The museum of the future is lively and full of life and death. They may even be interesting enough to have documentaries made out of them. 'Police Intermuseums' coming to a minor cable channel soon.

Ideal Gift for a Curator?

It's the curator's birthday next week and I was looking for something inspirational that challenges his/her* way of thinking. So I searched for 'entrepreneurial gifts' on the internet and came across www.startupvitamins.com purveyor of trite/inspirational soundbites in physical form. A quick perusal of their merchandise revealed this gem. If nothing else, if the curator follows this mantra it will free up some space in our stores.

I've not seen him/her for many months and to be honest I've forgotten