OK, for starters…I’m not even going to pretend to be unbiased here. As a long time Giants fan, I couldn’t be happier with the way the Super Bowl XLII turned out…it was the greatest Super Bowl ever! For those of you who may have been recently lost in the outback without a radio, the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots 17-14 with a dramatic thirteen yard touchdown pass from Eli Manning to Plaxico Burress with only 35 seconds left in the game…thrilling!

However, I do feel bad for my friends who are Patriots fans (you know who you are). Those of you who are ALSO Red Sox fans can at least satisfy yourselves with the knowledge that spring training is just around the corner!

Although it may seem a stretch…I truly believe that there are some great lessons to be learned from this Super Bowl that can help improve your business. While competition in the sports arena can differ from that in the business arena, over the years the gap between the two has narrowed greatly. Just look at the details of some of those player contracts negotiated by their go-for-the-throat agents!

What are some of the key lessons?

• Fight overconfidence: It was clear that my Patriots-fan friends felt that a victory was in the bag. After all, the Patriots were “perfect” 18-0 going into this game…and had played the Giants before and beat them…piece of cake, right? Maybe that’s life lesson #1 from this year’s Super Bowl: overconfidence is the greatest victory killer in sports…and in business. Overconfidence causes you to prepare with less intensity. Overconfidence causes you to believe your own B.S. - when you just MAY be wrong. Overconfidence = underperformance.
  
  • Never give up: After a disappointing season last year, Coach Tom Coughlin barely hung on to his job. This year, the team started 0-2, and more and more experts called for his firing. The pressure increased on the Giants owners to make a move. The lesson here? Never give up! Coughlin rededicated himself to his job and worked that much harder. Soon the wins started coming…including an NFL record eleven consecutive road wins. With a Super Bowl win under his belt…contract renewal should not be a problem.
  
  • Embrace Change: Coach Coughlin enjoyed a reputation as a tough taskmaster and autocratic dictator, a style well known and used by many coaches in the over-testosteroned NFL. Yet, with his job on the line, he did something totally out of character that shocked all those around him. He completely changed his relationship with the players. “You have to change, you have to adjust,” Coughlin told the New York Times. Coughlin reached out to his players and their leaders and formed a partnership. He started a “leadership council” made up of several key players. He met with them regularly to get in tune with their thoughts and to stay connected with the perspective of the players.
  
  • Have fun: But the biggest change that Coughlin made? He told the players that the time had come to “have fun with this” and enjoy themselves…and in the process he took the pressure off his embattled team. Michael Strahan, the Giant's defensive captain said that no coach has ever used that word with him before…fun. The players responded big time and their season turned around.
  
  • When everyone else has given up on you…believe in yourself: Quarterback Eli Manning…for most of his Giants career…was a disaster. His play could be summed up as moments of brilliance punctuated with fumbling bumbling disaster. Not long ago, the beginning of THIS season, many said the Giants shouldn’t start Manning. What changed? Some say, that Eli found his way when superstar Jeremy Shockey was injured which relieved Manning of the pressure of having to constantly feed passes to this prima donna receiver. Others say that adversity finally brought out the best in him. What does he attribute the win to?
  
  “I think we just had a great will on this team – just a great group of guys. There was something special about this group. We were determined and we had great faith in ourselves. We had leaders across the board in every aspect. Everybody knew their role and their responsibility. No matter what we’ve been through, I think it’s helped that a lot of the players have been together for the last three or four years. We’ve just learned to deal with adversity and learned how to overcome mistakes, a bad play or a disappointment, and put it behind us and forget about it. We just had total faith and confidence that no matter what is thrown at us, we can handle it and we can overcome it.”
  
  With every win, the naysayers said that it was a fluke…they’ll lose the next one. Dallas? Oh they can’t beat Dallas, the Cowboys are America’s team! (That's Tony Romo eating dirt in the photo at right.) Green Bay? Forget it…Brett Favre is one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the game and he has a date with destiny. Patriots…no way!
  
  So this lesson is…you gotta believe! When everyone else doubts you, you’ve absolutely got to believe in yourself. The more people doubted the Giants…the more the team pulled together and helped each other. And the more they pulled together, the more they began to accomplish incredible things!
  
  • Ignore the stats: No NFC team has ever gone from wild card to Super Bowl champ. The team that leads at half time has won 32 out of 39 times. If the Giants had paid any attention to the statistics from football history…they would have given up long ago. Fortunately, they understood that statistics are meant to continually be rewritten. Many, many records were set in this game…mostly by the Giants!
  
  • Be different: Before the last game of the regular season in which the Giants would play the Patriots in a game that was essentially meaningless as both teams were already in the playoffs, many “experts” said Coughlin should sit his starters and not risk an injury before the post season. To everyone’s surprise, Coughlin played his starters. Why? Coughlin viewed this game as a dress rehearsal for the playoffs…it was an opportunity to give the team a taste of what they were about to face in a game with the number one rival. The result? Although the Giants lost this game 38-35, the team performed well...surprisingly well...against the indomitable Patriots. After this game, the team pulled together and began a playoff run that surprised everyone…including those same experts criticizing Coughlin. The Giants credit this game for launching one of their most successful post seasons ever.
  

Take a play from a Super Bowl team's winning playbook and your business can have super results as well! Oh, and don’t forget…HAVE FUN!