Quiet Leadership: Winning Hearts, Minds and Matches

by Carlo Ancelotti

  ‘If your teammates looked at you on some days and did the same thing as you then we’d never finish a training session with all the team on the pitch, because there are times when you don’t train properly yourself. So then I would have to find an excuse for you.’

  I told him that I had explained it to the other player as well, telling him that if he wanted to be valued like Ronaldo, he too must score sixty goals a season for many years. ‘Ronaldo is who you must reference,’ I said to the complaining player. ‘You have to change your attitude; you have to be focused on the players who trained well.’

  He said, ‘Now I understand.’

  It was the same with Florent Malouda. At Chelsea we used to use GPS devices to collect data about each player’s performance, and in the middle of the first training session, Malouda removed the GPS device and went to the dressing room. I followed him and asked him why he had left.

  ‘Because I’m tired of this GPS crap,’ he said. ‘It is just to control me and I don’t like to be controlled. I don’t want to train with this.’ I told him, ‘You have to train with this. It’s not to control you – it’s to control my job.’ I tried to explain the situation and I told him, very quietly, that his behaviour was not acceptable. ‘If you don’t go outside,’ I added, as Vito Corleone himself might have said, ‘I have to kill you.’ He went outside.

  After that we managed the GPS issue better. The players really didn’t like using it every day and, in my view, it’s not always so important to use it – so we compromised. GPS is essential only when you have a strong session, to stop you damaging the players, so I said, ‘Let’s use it for four days out of six.’ Then the problem was that some of the players, particularly the British players, wanted to use the GPS every day. They couldn’t understand that, to me, if you use GPS for four days it is the same result – nothing changes. ‘Why can’t we work harder?’ they’d ask. This is the British way.

  I am reminded of what Paul Clement told me about the World Cup-winning English rugby coach Clive Woodward. He said that there are two kinds of people – energizers and energy sappers. When you see the behaviour of a player on the training pitch like that I’ve just described at Real Madrid, you can see clearly an energy sapper. Their behaviour takes away your energy. It can take away the energy of the whole group. It certainly took away the energy of the player who left the pitch.

  It is the energizers who are the reference points for everybody, including me. Players such as Sergio Ramos, he gives you energy – when he speaks, when he trains. Cristiano, Pepe, Benzema – these are all ‘energizers’. When I say to a player, ‘You have to be professional,’ they must understand that I’m saying this for their benefit. I don’t want to spell out this law, which I believe should be implicit, so by referencing the other players, I can show it. They can see it with their own eyes and understand how to behave.

  If somebody arrives at the club who does not behave professionally, I have to try to manage them by being totally professional myself on the training ground. I cannot allow my feelings about the player’s behaviour to allow me to unduly affect my work with him. However, this is difficult. During my career the manager was always a big example; first I had my father and after that I had a manager. An extension of the family. Now, for the players, the manager is not as important a reference. He is still an example, but not like before. Now they have their own football family, their own frame of reference: their agent; the press. The manager is not as important now as he was, so the personal relationship is not so easy to establish. But day by day, you have to build a stricter relationship with the player as they begin to understand the implicit rule – to meet the standards of professionalism demanded by me and the club.

  There are other implicit rules unique to different dressing rooms around the world. In Milan, I was used to training at three in the afternoon, but at Chelsea the players were used to training at eleven in the morning. You cannot start training at three in the afternoon in London, because in winter it’s dark before you finish at five. (Also, if you train in the afternoon it means you can’t get down to the betting shop afterwards for the start of the racing.) These implicit rules are an accepted part of the culture.

  Of course, I could make new, explicit rules. I have that power, in theory. I could tell the players, ‘We now train at seven in the morning,’ but this is not the right way. This is just to show power. It is always best to use soft power, quiet power with the players, to influence and have them follow the implicit rules because they believe in them.

  There are times when it is important to use both implicit and explicit rules. I hope all the players who play for me know my non-negotiables and my most important rule is to train properly – always give 100 per cent in training. You need to know this if you want to play for me. I cannot allow you just to learn from the others – this takes too long. I have to tell you, then the others will constantly reinforce. They will explain when you are crossing the line. ‘The boss won’t like that,’ they’ll say.

  It is essential that any non-negotiables are both explicitly stated and implicitly reinforced by players’ behaviour on the training ground. If I can point to another player’s behaviour as an example it’s much easier than having to describe it.

  There will always come a time when a player wants to test you, and then you are forced to weigh your principles against expediency. In my first year at Chelsea, with seven games to go, we had a meeting before our game with Aston Villa. Didier Drogba arrived thirty minutes late, so for this reason he didn’t play. Not because I was upset, but because he needed to be present at the meeting. I had presented the tactical plan for the game, explaining it all to the players, and I couldn’t allow Drogba special consideration. Nobody was allowed to miss this meeting.

  Without him in the team we won, 7–1. His replacement, Nicolas Anelka, didn’t score, but he played a fantastic game. He killed Aston Villa with movement. The game after, we played Manchester United at Old Trafford and again Drogba didn’t play, this time not because he was late, but because Anelka had played so brilliantly against Aston Villa. This is the law of the dressing room – everyone the same, no special privileges. Everyone must be professional. I brought Drogba on as a substitute in the match and he scored our second – and what would become decisive – goal. There were no hard feelings between us as he produced the perfect response to being dropped from the team.

  Sometimes these incidents go beyond being mere testing and become unacceptable. The players must know where the line is, as you cannot expect people to accept the rules if they don’t know what they are. You must communicate these early in the relationship. There are a lot of things that cannot be tolerated – continually arriving late to training is one and being disrespectful of teammates another. If you’re disrespectful to my staff, then that’s it. That’s unacceptable.

  These non-negotiables are about behaviour, and only behaviour. They are not about mistakes on the pitch. If this behaviour is towards me, then I can respond and deal with it, but players who think they can disrespect my staff because they are not the boss – no. This is not right. I have to defend their status. This kind of thing affects the character of the team, who we are as a team, and it is not up for negotiation with me. Players know that I am the ultimate decision-maker but they need to respect the team who are assisting me. They should know that any attack on my management team is an attack on me.

  I had a problem with one particular player for this reason. He was disrespectful to my assistant, Paul Clement, during a training session and I sent him straight to the dressing room. When I spoke with him afterwards I told him, ‘It’s unacceptable. I will be telling the president that I want you to go.’ And he went, eventually, but from that moment on, the trust was gone.

  THE WORKPLACE: THE QUIET WAY

  Your responsibility as a leader is to those you lead.

  Influence beats coercion.

  Kill feuds as quickly as possible. Top talent can be very fragile, sustained con
flict can seriously change the energy of the group.

  Encourage the staff to take ownership for the environment and the culture of the workplace. The workplace is their second home, where they spend a lot of time. Let people put their own stamp on it.

  Encourage the energizers, remove the energy sappers.

  In Their Own Words … The Players

  John Terry on Carlo

  When Carlo was appointed Chelsea manager, I’d heard really good things about him – his man-management top among them – so I was curious to meet him. He’d worked with some of the best players in the world, players that I’d looked up to during my career, and yet I was still surprised at how good he actually was. His man-management was the best I’ve ever had in any of my managers, but what really impressed me were his training sessions, his understanding of players and people, which I don’t think a lot of managers nowadays get. He treats people as human beings, whether you win, lose or draw.

  You know his training is excellent because he’s coached the best teams in the world, which speaks for itself, but it’s the personal touches – asking about the family, caring about the off-field stuff – the little things. This, for me, is why the players love him. Instead of being distant, it was always that group mentality.

  I’ve seen him go off on one after games – not often, but I’ve seen it. He doesn’t accept losing easily. He would have these occasional rants, where no one says anything and you listen and take it on board, and then the next minute he’s your best mate again. He’d be coming down the back of the bus after a defeat saying, ‘We’ll be all right. We go again in three days – we’ll win, no worry.’ The little touches.

  He’s coached Paolo Maldini, Alessandro Costacurta, Alessandro Nesta, these absolutely top central defenders. I liked to pick his brains on, for example, what they did after training or what they did to improve their game. I was desperate to know about that process. How did he work with those players in my position who were probably some of the best ever? What were those conversations like? Were they one-to-one conversations, with the back four only, or within the team?

  With me it was predominantly one-to-one. Whether he meant it or not, he said, ‘JT, you’re up there with them – you just keep doing what you’re doing.’ It made me feel like one of them, one of these guys I’ve looked up to my whole career. In fact, I don’t really care if he meant it or not because he made me feel like a million dollars when he was at Chelsea.

  Listen, I’ve played in big games, and in all of those he brought out the best not only of me but also of the other players. He would make us feel ten feet tall in the press, at just the right time. He kept everyone together, which I’d not seen in a long time, and to keep a group of twenty-five top players happy the whole time isn’t easy. Obviously, you’ve got the eleven in the team, but everybody forgets about the other fourteen players who don’t play, who are cheesed off because they’re not playing. These are the guys who train on their own the day after the game while the other players are warming down and getting ready for the next game. The sessions need to be well run, he needs to be there and active in them, and he was; he was there for every session, always visible.

  His door was always open to everybody, and nowadays I don’t think you get that too often. I think that you get managers closing their doors and thinking solely about the first team, but he was interested in the academy boys. He knew everyone’s names, the young kids included, and I know that, as a player who came through here myself, it meant the world to the younger kids that Ancelotti knew their names.

  Carlo was smart when he first arrived. He recognized that we had been through a period under Mourinho with a lot of success, and that many of those players were still here. So, Carlo wasn’t one of those managers who comes in and says, ‘Right, this is my way. This is the only way I think and it’s going to be my way or no way at all.’ No, he came in and spoke with the more experienced players as a group and as individuals and said, ‘Listen, obviously I’ve got my ideas, but you guys have known great things for the last few years here. You need to give me a bit of insight into what you think worked really well and why you think you were so successful. Also, how you want things, how you enjoy things.’

  I’m not saying he agreed with everything, but to be prepared to take on board the likes of myself, Lamps, Didier and Petr Cech – the spine of the team – was a great start to our relationship. It remained that way. It wasn’t for show; he genuinely wanted our input. He wanted to know what kind of daily routine we were used to, what we felt made the players tick.

  Of course, he had his own ideas. He certainly brought on the tactical side of things. At Milan, he had liked to do the tactics a couple of days before the game. For me, that never worked in our environment in England and when we said this to him, he took that on board. He would then mix it up, doing the tactics the day before a game, a bit of team shape and, depending on the game, would either name the team the day before or on the day of the game, especially if it was an evening kick-off. The point is that he had actually listened and, again, I don’t see many managers now coming in and listening like Carlo did. Some are still all about it being either their way or no way. Once you know someone is listening, you become more comfortable coming up with your own ideas.

  He had to change the way he had been used to training. In Italy they clearly separate the physical from the tactical when they train and integrating it, as we do here, was new to him. You could see him really thinking about it. You get this idea of him being quite scholarly, thinking about the game: ‘Hang on – this might just work.’

  He was open to ideas. We had a team of nutritionists and analysts, so we always used to wear heart-rate monitors, GPS and the like during games, and they wanted to bring that information into training. Because he’d come from the mentality of ‘save it all for the weekend’, he was shocked by the likes of me, Lamps and Ash kind of charging into tackles. You could see him thinking, ‘No, no, no – we don’t do that,’ but he never actually said it. Instead he’d say, ‘That’s your way so you continue to do it because it’s working for you and has obviously worked in the past. Just be careful.’

  He’d have one guy standing on the sidelines watching everyone’s heart-rate monitor during training, and if they went into the red zone a little too much, he would ask them to pull out or take it a bit easier. Nine times out of ten the player said no, often because it was the English lads and the ones who really grafted putting in a shift, but again he listened and was receptive to everything. He brought a lot of fresh and new ideas, not only to the first team, but also to the club as a whole; the academy still uses them today.

  Paul Clement was here with him, whom he was obviously nurturing and trying to develop, so occasionally Clem would take the sessions, but Carlo would take 90 per cent of them. Even if he wasn’t taking the session himself, he would be there.

  One of the things that he was obsessed about, which was great for me and the other defenders, was working with the back five. We’d work on movement and shape all the time, getting the distance between players right – that sort of stuff. As I said, because of his history, the defensive unit was keen to work with him. Those sessions were intense – short and sharp. Again, this showed how he knew players. We would do the sessions in small patterns of five- or ten-minute blocks, because he understood that you couldn’t do them for thirty or forty minutes. Players get bored and want to play five-a-side – we want the ball.

  When we worked on shape, one centre back would push the ball and the others would come in and all of a sudden you’re doing it instinctively. We were so well drilled going into games, which is why we had such a great period under him. Everyone knew their position, and it wasn’t because we were spending three or four hours of the day on tactics; it was his knowledge, his understanding. He’d know it was better to dip your toe in there, come out and have a bit of fun, then get back in there, before you get your head right the day before a game. He’d know when it was time to switc
h on and get serious, and equally he was happy for it to be a little bit more relaxed during the week. Two days before a match, though, you could see him get into his game zone, and that rubbed off on everyone.

  He was aware that Chelsea was a big club and losing was not an option. He would say that in smaller clubs some inconsistency was OK, but not with a big club. We had to have a big-club mentality in his eyes. Mourinho also had that kind of mentality. He didn’t accept losing at all, even in training; he couldn’t get his head round it. I think because the games in England come thick and fast, Carlo adapted well. You don’t get time to dwell on it for a week. The Italian league was a bit different with a whole week between games; here the games come at the weekend, Wednesday, the weekend again, and early kick-offs, late kick-offs, Bank Holidays, Sundays.

  At times, things would be going well on the pitch and you’d come in 2–0 up at half-time, thinking, ‘We’ve got this, three points in the bag,’ and he’d go off on one. All of a sudden everyone’s back on their toes, ready for the second half. When you’re a young player you think, ‘Why has the manager gone mad there?’ But when you’re a little bit older, like myself and Lamps, you take a step back and think, ‘He’s been clever there – we were going to get sloppy.’ We’d go back out there and make it 3–0 and then control possession and that’s the end of the game.

  He knew exactly how to bring the best out of everyone and keep everyone’s heads in the game for the second half. As you get older you look back and think, ‘That’s what separates the best for me – the little things.’ I guess it’s like any business – at the very top level the differences are so small that it’s the little things that make the difference.