Management master class: Man United tries a Ferguson clone – The Wall Street Journal

For the past five years, the most confounding issue around Manchester United has been figuring out life after Alex Ferguson.

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30 Jan 2019, 12:34 pm

EDINBURGH — The point is often made in human resources circles that managers have a tendency to hire individuals who remind them of themselves. Taking this concept to a new level is football club Man United, which has just snapped up a manager who reminds them of Sir Alex Ferguson, the ruddy-faced, abrasive Scot who kept the football club at the top of the league for years. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer spent years under Ferguson, as a player and later a youth coach. Now the new Man United manager is making a concerted effort to look like Ferguson and act like Ferguson. Football fans in Manchester aren't so sure that it is a case of if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. Nevertheless, the development makes for a fascinating study for business school students pondering whether copycat management is a strategy for success. The Wall Street Journal has produced this in-depth feature on Solskjaer, who is mimicking Sir Ferguson's every trait — right down to the tie and jacket. – Jackie Cameron