Edge: Leadership Secrets from Footballs’s Top Thinkers. Ben Lyttleton

pick of his goals was the fourth one, when he ran onto a pass from centre-back Yeray Alvarez that split the Genk midfield and defence. Aduriz did not even need to control the ball; he just stroked it first-time into the corner of the net. Before the game, a fan told me about Yeray, a 21-year-old defender with only five starts to his name. ‘At any other club, Yeray would not get a chance. We were worried about defence after Gurpegi left the club. But instead of buying someone old and expensive and not very good, we give a chance to our youngsters coming through. Before the season began, I thought Yeray would be a five out of ten. Instead he’s playing nine out of ten. I tell you, at no other club would Yeray even get a chance.’ (It turned out to be quite a season for Yeray, who was diagnosed with testicular cancer a few weeks after my visit. He underwent a successful operation in December and was back playing 46 days later. Five days after his comeback, he extended his contract, which now has a €30 million release clause, until 2022. Sadly, the cancer returned after the 2016–17 season ended.)

      On this Friday morning, I see Yeray with the first-team, having a light warm-down session at Lezama, the training-centre nestled under lush green mountains and farmhouses ten miles east of Bilbao. This is where the club’s dedication to developing locally born players into first-teamers is demonstrated. There are six full-size pitches, one with a 1,500-seater stand and a symbolic arch that was removed from the original main stand of the San Mames before its recent reconstruction.

      ‘At Lezama, the work done with the different teams is unique and shared by all the coaches at the club,’ runs the club’s mission statement. ‘The player is the key element, the cornerstone of our development plan, and games are the fundamental means of learning while taking on new concepts. Along with the optimisation of the player’s sporting performance, it is about the integrated development of all their personal aspects. It is about reaching the end of the process with a human psychological profile for an Athletic player. Someone who meets the demands of today’s football, and who also represents the values and idiosyncrasies of the club.’

      Watching on from his office is José Maria Amorrortu. A former Athletic striker in the 1970s, he is now the sporting director. His job is to assess all the talent coming through the club. It’s his second spell in the job; he returned from Atlético Madrid (where his talent crop included Spain internationals Koke and David de Gea) in 2011, when current president Josu Urrutia, another former player, was first elected.

      He too was impressed with the previous night’s performance of Yeray. ‘We can say that every day, the kid who plays at centre-back who has not been playing long for the first team, he surprises us. We can see his process of development has been a success.’

      In the course of our time together, Amorrortu pinpoints three factors central to Athletic’s success that are critical to businesses today. This is where we can learn from Athletic: its social purpose to represent the best qualities of the Basque region; the investment in talent as humans first, so they feel valued and in an environment where they can develop; and the importance of talent retention which, in Athletic’s unique case, overrides almost everything.

      Every year, 20 children enter the cantera aged ten. Maybe two in each year, 10 per cent, will stay and make it to the first team. It’s an outstanding return. ‘Our strength is to help all of the kids reach their potential. They know and they also push themselves, that’s why they stick with it. But that number, it’s extraordinarily good.’

      When he arrived for his second spell, Amorrortu produced a planning document, called Construyendo nuestro futuro (Building our Future), that forms the backbone of Athletic strategy. He shows me the document. It demands a Lezama that is open, modern, supported by its tradition, at the forefront of development, with the best professionals and integrated in Basque sport and football. Under subheadings that include Improvement, Quality, Personal Development, Sportsmanship, Talent Identification, and Recruitment, its focus is on the development of people and not just players. Remember what Arrate wrote in the centenary book: ‘We wish to mould our players into men, not just footballers.’

      This is a theme we will come back to in this chapter. Companies that invest in the human side of talent get better results than those who only focus on outcomes. Google hire people they find ‘exceptionally interesting’ regardless of academic qualifications. They look for generalists rather than those specialists who may bring their own unconscious biases. When the company was specifically looking for ‘smart creatives’, it instigated ‘the LAX test’. Google execs were to imagine they were stuck at LA airport for six hours with a candidate: did they like that individual, and would they still be creative or interesting to talk to after six hours? Did they have insight? ‘If they don’t,’ said Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt, ‘I just don’t think you should be hiring them.’

      Perhaps the most significant page in Construyendo nuestro futuro is the one at the back, on Social Responsibility. The task: to reinforce and expand el sentimiento Athletic, the Athletic feeling; to stay loyal to players and their families; and to carry the Athletic spirit within our daily actions. This intangible element of the club is what has sustained it for so long.

      ‘We have a 100-year-old culture, and that tradition is to always count on kids from our region. This has hardened into our identity,’ Amorrortu explains. ‘The values we have are fundamental and they form a culture which is the expression of a way of being. That is what Athletic has.’

      So begins an elaborate verbal dance in which I try to tease out exactly what these values are and where the edge exists. Amorrortu talks a lot about feeling, belonging, culture and social capital. These are the pillars of the club, and noticeable the night before when the biggest cheers (apart from the Aduriz goals) came when local boys Iñaki Williams, Sabin Merino and Javier Eraso were all substituted on.

      One club director told me part of this culture comes from one degree of separation: ‘Everyone in this city knows someone who has played for Athletic. So the sense of belonging is passed down through the generations. It’s pride. “I knew this kid and look at him now …”’ Most of the shirts on sale in the club shop don’t have player names on the back; the club wants supporters to put their own names on the back, to encourage kids to dream that one day it might be them.

      Amorrortu agrees. ‘Yes, it’s about a pride in belonging to this club, belonging here, to feel part of this club. The chance that the kids might play in the first team gives them great excitement. It is these intangible things that encourage the player to make a bigger effort during his development. To feel part of Athletic is to be in communion with the values of the club. To play for this club means you identify with an idea. It’s a feeling and that’s a way of being, to feel a part of something. Athletic represents a lot. It is not only the team of the city, it also represents a philosophy.’

      Amorrortu’s staff of 91 coaches try to bring this philosophy to life. The document talks about encouraging autonomy, allowing players to take responsibility, and focusing on the players’ educational and psychological improvement. He compares it to a stone that, if rubbed enough, will change shape. ‘It comes from something natural, essential, inside.’

      The values relate to the region. ‘The culture here in the Basque country is a culture based on hard work, collaboration, common feeling, and of participation, of working together in a team, of a way of being,’ he says. ‘It is something transmitted down the generations in a spontaneous way. And from that, we can say we form part of a legacy that comes from our ancestors.’

      Keeping this legacy going, above all, is how Athletic measures success. Players and staff alike are clearly very aware of it. ‘It’s a lot more than a football club,’ says Aduriz. ‘It can’t be compared to any other club in the world, it’s unique,’ adds Williams, tipped to be the new star for Athletic and Spain. ‘For me, victory is watching 11 Basque players every Sunday, maintaining the philosophy that’s been there for 100 years,’ says club historian and museum curator Asier Arrate. ‘That’s our title.’

      They are quite right; but it’s by redefining how they measure success that makes Athletic different in the world of football. It also makes them attractive to a corporate world looking to find its own version of