My Super Bowl Business Lesson

What a game Super Bowl LI turned out to be!

In the past, when it seemed that one team was going to dominate the other, by halftime I would have changed the channel or gone back to the snack table for thirds (Who am I kidding? Fourths and fifths 😉

This time was different, and I took away a huge business lesson from what I saw.

I saw the New England Patriot’s head coach, Bill Belichick, calmly take out a piece of paper and pencil and started taking notes on what he was seeing on the field. I saw the coach kneel in front of players sitting on the bench, talk to them, listen to them and take more notes.

Then after the halftime show, it was a slightly different game.

I say “slightly” different because both teams played great football in the first half. The Atlanta Falcons held the Patriots to a field goal and racked up 21 points with persistent gameplay on both sides of the ball. Unfortunately for the Falcons, Coach Belichick did three things before and after the half that led the Patriots to an overtime victory:

Study, Adjust, and Execute.

Coach Belichick didn’t get flustered that his team wasn’t winning or that his guys weren’t “doing their jobs” properly (because I’ve seen what he looks like when his guys aren’t doing their jobs!). He knew that something had to change in how his team was playing, so he studied what was going on, talked to his team, decided on adjustments that needed to be made and then executed.

Study, Adjust, and Execute.

I decided that when I’m faced with a business process that isn’t as good as it can be, a marketing campaign that isn’t getting the results I’m after or a lackluster sales outlook of my company’s products and services, the best response is to..

Study – Do the homework, observe what the competition is doing, note how the markets respond to my products and services, get with my team and then..

Adjust – Come up with a plan or series of steps to get the results that I’m after, and then..

Execute – Pull the trigger and do the work. Hopefully we will see a noticeable, measurable difference and if we don’t..

Study, Adjust, and Execute, over and over, until we get that sixth Super Bowl ring.