Brian Laws and John Mousinho: The new deal

FLEX YOUR STYLE

In order for people to buy into your vision and methodology they need to trust you, but building trust doesn’t happen overnight. US businessman Kevin Plank once said that ‘trust is earned in droplets and lost in buckets’, and new managers have precious little time to fill up.

As soon as they turn up on their first day, the clock starts ticking. New managers face the perfect storm of high expectations, instant scrutiny and intense pressure, all while trying to find their feet. LMA technical manager and former manager Brian Laws says that while respect and trust in your abilities will grow when you start to win games, there are things you can do in the early days and even beforehand to buy yourself valuable time.

“First off, it’s so important to have a real understanding of what being the manager means and what challenges you’re likely to face,” he says. “Think, for example, about how you’re going to deal with the change in your relationships, going from being a friend and a link between the players and manager to the main decision maker.

Consider how you’ll communicate with everyone in the club and get your coaching philosophy across.”

Preparation is key, agrees John Mousinho, manager of newly promoted Portsmouth, who recently won the Sky Bet Manager of the Year Award for League One. “It’s important to have a clear idea of how you want to do things, but keep in mind that however well prepared you might feel, it’s likely you will face problems on your first day that you never imagined,” he says. “You have to be ready to adapt and deal with the unexpected.”

LITTLE BY LITTLE

Like Mousinho, Laws embarked on management with a good idea of how he wanted do things, but he realised he would need to take things slowly at first. “I felt it was important to keep things simple early on, rather than coming in with an explosion of ideas and changes that might lead to confusion,” he says. “I thought it better to win people’s respect first, and then build things up.”

The aim, at least early on, he adds, should be small wins with the players, perhaps based around discussions with the more experienced team members to help develop connections and trust.

At Portsmouth, while Mousinho didn’t feel he was implementing anything too radical, he was keen that there should be a noticeable change from day one. “It was important to me that people could see who I was and how I wanted to do things from the start, rather than me springing it on them a few months in,” he says.

SHARE THE LOAD

Speaking on an LMA Insights webinar in the spring, Miami Dolphins associate head coach Eric Studesville also talked about staying true to yourself and your values, drawing on his experience of becoming interim head coach of the Denver Broncos.

New managers can feel overwhelmed by the sudden barrage of responsibilities, he says, and often try to take on too much. “I never realised how many issues, decisions and concerns come across your desk every day.

Everyone needs your opinion and attention, and if you’re not grounded in who you are it can consume you. I realised also that I would need to empower the people around me to do what they do best,” he adds.

Mousinho agrees on the importance of trusting people to do their jobs. “In my first week as a manager, there was so much I had to do, so I asked the goalkeeper coach to handle set pieces, and each of the other coaches to step up. That was invaluable in taking some of the burden off me, so I could focus on what really mattered.”

The players, too, can provide valuable support, helping the new manager to build connections within the group and win buy-in to their ideas. “Analyse your squad early on and identify who your allies might be,” says Laws.

“Who could help to spread or reinforce your messages among the team? Who are the strongest leaders and who has a voice in the dressing room?”

At Portsmouth, Mousinho did just this, finding a key ally in the form of a senior player who he’d played alongside years earlier at Wycombe. “Having that connection with the dressing room was invaluable,” he says. “Given I’d been a player for Oxford just prior to becoming manager of Portsmouth, I was keen to maintain a close relationship with the team members, and keep it a player-centric environment,” he says.

“I regularly remind myself of that goal, and look at my work through the lens of what I would have wanted as a player. What would I have enjoyed and been engaged by?”

BE YOURSELF

According to Studesville, showing authenticity and demonstrating an interest in the people you’re leading can also go a long way to building bridges and earning trust and respect. 

“People don’t care how much you know unless they know how much you care,” he says. “I do that by trying to get to know my players as individuals, finding out who their significant others are, their kids’ names, and so on.

Likewise, I want the players to know about my kids and my family, so they know who I am, and what my motivation is to come to work every day. There needs to be a shared relationship.”

In this respect, Mousinho believes that having only recently moved from the back of the team bus to the front actually plays to his advantage. “I thought the fact that I’d never managed a game in my life would be my biggest weakness going into the job, but in some ways it has been my biggest strength,” he says.

“Ultimately, whether you’re highly experienced or new to management, the players are always going to scrutinise and judge you in the early days and weeks,” he adds. “First impressions are incredibly important, and by far the best way to win their trust is to get things right.” That can take a little luck, but it also means being authentic, he says. “There are, after all, endless ways to coach and manage, but you have to do it your way, decide what you want to do and believe in yourself.”