Moyes' Mistakes: What Can New Managers Learn? (The Last Part)

Moyes' Mistake: Failing to Establish a Clear Strategic Direction

Ex GE CEO Jack Welch stresses the importance of leaders setting a clear strategic direction for their organisations. In his book ‘Winning’ he jokes that they should aim to get to a point where their organisation/team’s vision and accompanying strategy is so vivid that if you woke an employee up in the middle of the night and asked them ‘where are we going’, you would get a coherent reply.

When Moyes arrived at United, commentators speculated as to whether he would make changes to the club’s footballing ‘philosophy’/strategic direction. 50 games later, there was a recognition that a change had indeed taken place, but with the strategy deviating widely from game to game, there seemed to be no clear vision that the team was working towards in the long term. Players Moyes inherited struggled to adapt to ever changing styles of play, growing more disillusioned week by week. Meanwhile, new players Moyes brought the club (Fellaini & Mata), did not seem clear about their roles within the team and struggled to assimilate. The team's performance deteriorated rapidly and consistently poor results eventually led to his dismissal.

Lesson 3: Establish A Clear Vision & Accompanying Strategy; Then You Can Start Building Your Team

All new managers come under immediate pressure to start ‘Building a Winning Team’. In the words of Jim Collins in ‘Good to Great’, their first focus is getting the right people ‘on the bus’. I believe this approach is flawed, leads to hiring & retention errors, a lack of foresight on skills development requirements and ultimately poor team performance. In my opinion, the first job of a new manager should be to decide where the ‘bus’ is going. They must chart a clear vision and accompanying strategy for the team, identify the skills required to execute on this strategy and assess whether these skills are present within their inherited team. Where empty seats on the ‘bus’ exist, a hiring and development plan should be established to begin filling them.

Failure to put this strategic foundation in place will lead to several problems, as experienced by David Moyes:

Poor Judgements on Staff Acquisition & Retention: Having a clear understanding of the mixture of skill sets required, within the team, to help deliver upon your strategy, makes it easier for managers to take informed, measured and timely decisions about who to keep, who to hire and who to move on. Lacking this clarity, David Moyes has made several poor judgements in the area of player retention & acquisition.

Attracting New Hires: Moyes missed out on all his key transfer targets this Summer. People are much more likely to get on a ‘bus’ if they know where it is going.

Team Motivation: Having a clear vision and strategy serves to motivate and inspire the entire group. Under Moyes, the team has delivered numerous performances that betray significant disillusionment and lack of motivation amongst the players.

What Can New Managers Take Away?

Start with Vision & Strategy: Setting A Clear Strategic Direction for the team should be your first priority. As the capabilities, skills and structure required to deliver upon your strategy become apparent, you will then be in a strong position to start 'Building a Winning Team': approaching hiring and retention decisions in a systemic way and putting a solid learning and development plan in place.

Make Personnel Decisions Your Next Priority: Any Shift in Strategic Direction will result in a temporary misalignment between the skills the team possesses and those it needs to deliver on the strategy. Some re alignment can be achieved through training and coaching. However, there will almost certainly be some need for new employees to be brought into the organisation. Judgement calls on staff acquisition and retention should be made through the lens of the team's overarching strategic direction.

Communicate The Direction Clearly & Repeatedly: Continuously reinforce the vision and strategy to team members in both individual and group settings. It will help team members make smarter decisions regarding how they allocate their time, how they think about personal development and also serve as a source of inspiration for the group.

Decide where the 'bus' is going, before starting to decide who gets a seat; then use the final destination as a source of motivation.