I was fortunate to have spent an evening at the RAC Club in London yesterday listening to one of England’s leading sports managers talking about his professional experiences.

When someone as experienced as Mr Harry Redknapp is speaking about issues such as people management and selection there is often much that can be learned. Apparent within woven anecdotes and tales, as entertaining as they were informative, were philosophies on people management that resonate to all industries.

Harry Redknapp is a household name in the UK and is becoming ever more renowned internationally after leading Tottenham Hotspur Football Club to the latter stages of the European Champions League. When he took over the reins of a sporting team that was languishing at the bottom of its league two and a half years ago few would have predicted qualification for Europe’s premier football competition, let alone for his team to progress so far.

He is a veteran of management in an industry that takes no prisoners. His career spans over 45 years in professional football, with over twenty five years spent in a coaching or management capacity. The football industry has undergone huge modernisation and change since he first entered as a professional in the mid-sixties and his work is constantly open to public critique and analysis. The fact that he has survived over such a long time in top level management within an industry infamous for wielding its axe is a considerable achievement in itself.

One of the many questions he was asked yesterday was “what is the secret of your success Harry?”

“Luck!” was his response. He said he’d been lucky to have worked with great players… players who have talent and are happy to work hard and train well. He explained that he’d been lucky to work with great experienced backroom staff that he can talk with and whose ideas provide important inputs for his decision making. “Management then becomes easy,” he said.

Selecting the right people to make achieving things more possible is something that he clearly implicitly understands and he demonstrates this in the way he recognises the contribution of others. He does not seem one for clichés and doesn’t borrow quotes from others when explaining his philosophies. He relies on straight forward dialogue, informal case examples and achievement highlights, including those of others. He made no great effort in speaking of how good he was in managing difficult challenges, but rather emphasised that challenges are easier if you are ‘lucky’ enough to have the right people with the right skills and behaviours.

This is no different in any business and he made this point really well with his insights in the context of an industry that many of us observe from the outside.

I think when Mr Redknapp says luck he really means judgement.