In a recent interview with Sir Alex Ferguson, he hailed ‘preparation’ as the biggest key to his and his club’s continuing success.

The man behind, potentially, the greatest sports team of the modern era has been subject to a lot of opinion both positive and negative over his past 26 years in charge of Manchester United – but what is it, exactly, that makes him such a great coach and manager of highly talented individuals?

In the interview he shuns the idea that he has had to change his approach to the ever changing competitive landscape of the premier league – instead he focuses on two key areas that have helped him – the capability of Manchester United to build and rebuild and his application to his job.

The first he states is based on trust, stability and loyalty, the desire to build is, as he puts it, “in the culture”.

Secondly he says that he never misses a training session, citing; “my observation is the most important part now”

As a coach, he is respectful of the institution he is part of – Manchester United, nothing is bigger, this is a sentiment fans of the team are all too familiar with as Ferguson’s stance on discipline has seen some of the biggest names in football leave the club. The fact that he never misses a training session not only shows his commitment – but an incontrovertible sense of responsibility and accountability for his position.

Is this what makes him such a great coach? The ability to take every component of his job and to turn it into one simple input, preparation, and turn that into one underpinning outcome - performance.  Does this define his success?

He even makes an unconscious separation between the success attributed to being a manager and that of a coach.

His opinion on management is intriguing: “to be a successful manager – you have to have a long apprenticeship”… he references how the best players do not make the best managers – we know how true this in sales! A subject for another day perhaps…

There is no doubt that success takes time and it must be said a fair amount of failure – and as anecdotes whizz around my head that in order to succeed spectacularly, one must first be willing to fail spectacularly – I will try to stay on point.  So, as a coach/manager it’s all about Preparation and time…

What is most poignant about these two things is that one indicatively allows you to make the most from the other and I believe that is where Sir Alex is going with his philosophy.

Ferguson in his first few years at United was afforded the patience that unfortunately doesn’t seem to exist in the business of football, or in the business of anything.  It took him 5 years to win a trophy – since then, his team have been in the hunt for and winning trophies, at every level  and the key to it all is preparation and application of that preparation over time. What is fantastic about how the interview ends is he is asked, would he be under pressure as a coach and manager if he went 5 years without winning a trophy? He smiles and answers “that won’t happen”.  I’m not sure that many people would disagree…