Are You Ready for Some Football Clichés?

Sure, too many coaches write books that try to apply the lessons of football to the world of business. But there really are some management lessons that can be learned on the gridiron.

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At 7:30 a.m. on an already humid August morning, I sit down to talk shop with Herman Edwards, head coach of the New York Jets. My eyes are still waxed shut from sleep; Edwards already has been on the job for three hours. His in-season workdays start at 4:30 a.m. Not that he drops his type A ways in the off-season. Earlier this year, he drove 14 hours through a blizzard just to keep an appointment with NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue.

We walk over to the practice field. Players stretch. Coordinators and assistant coaches confer. I get my bearings courtesy of a Jumbo Elliott-size iced coffee. Edwards bounds around, clapping, barking, cajoling, blowing his whistle, trading barbs with linebacker Marvin Jones, schmoozing the team president, etc. In this, his third year at the Jets helm, the coach's method--part Power of Positive Thinking, part Warren Sapp immovable force--seems to be clicking. The once-wayward franchise made the playoffs for the second consecutive year last season. If Edwards can keep the team in contention, his reputation as one of the bright young minds of the game will only grow.

And so will his credibility as a management guru.

Just as Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks go to Disneyland, Super Bowl-winning coaches write business books. There's an insatiable market for tomes detailing the blocking-and-tackling schemes of whoever last smooched the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Jon Gruden's Do You Love Football?!: Winning With Heart, Passion & Not Much Sleep came out in September.

In the off-season and when they retire, coaches also hit the lecture circuit, supplementing their income over flank steak and keg beer at sales conferences in Atlantic City. It is easy to understand why business audiences thirst for managerial lessons from guys donning headsets and neon polyester windbreakers. For starters, coaches get to live out every manager's inner desire to scream at employees, a.k.a. the players--the scraps televised for our enjoyment. Football's top managers also present tantalizing management case studies because their decisions are easy to grade--as they are, regularly, by drunken, shirtless fat guys in face paint. (Honestly, would you like it if a bunch of Packers Cheeseheads were on your board of directors?)

Sure, the expectation that honest-to-goodness managerial techniques can be absorbed from the leaders of the 53 men who play a violent game once a week--and instituted on the manufacturing floor of, say, a xylophone factory--may seem a bit of a stretch to some. But ask yourself, have you ever suggested that an employee "stick to the game plan?" Or "run the hurry-up offense?" Or "dominate the line of scrimmage?" It's curious how many entrepreneurs use language grounded in physicality even though most spend 10 hours a day at a PC.

Defending the business-as-football analogy (the best defense is always a good offense, right?), Lisa Delpy Neirotti, professor of sports management at George Washington University, says that "business is about managing people, and the lessons of a coach can definitely be applied to a CEO." Former New York Giants linebacker and current apparel entrepreneur Carl Banks agrees, telling me, "Successful teams, just like businesses, have an environment where everyone believes in the leader, and they perform accordingly."

So can the NFL sub for an M.B.A.? To find out, I visited training camps in August (average temperature: ungodly) and talked to a handful of the league's elite coaches--guys who have been to the playoffs. Certainly some of them had ideas about managing that seemed relevant to entrepreneurs. For example, Brian Billick of the Baltimore Ravens (author of Competitive Leadership: Twelve Principles for Success) is widely considered an ace at crafting motivational messages.

Now the popular image of a motivational speech in football is that of a red-faced saliva shower from a Mike Ditka-type whose kicker just shanked a game-winning field goal. The league still has its old-school hard apples (e.g., Dallas's own Lazarus, Bill Parcells). But Billick is part of a new school of communicators whose philosophies descended from former San Francisco 49ers head coach and current Stanford business school lecturer Bill Walsh. The new breed employs a more sophisticated approach. Screeching speeches "last about as long as it takes a player to run down and get his ass knocked off," Billick jokes. In the age of money, media, and Randy Moss, a nuanced style works better, Billick explains. "When coaches said, 'Jump,' players used to say, 'How high?' Now they say, 'Why?' and 'Is it in my contract?'" he says.

In 1998, as the offensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings, Billick got his team to maintain its focus after winning the division by challenging players to break the league record for points scored in a season. In 2000, he used the same technique on the Ravens defense, which said nevermore, holding opponents to a league-record 165 points. The Ravens won Super Bowl XXXV that year. In 2001, Billick invited HBO/NFL Films to make Hard Knocks, a behind-the-scenes documentary of training camp. He figured the players wouldn't get complacent in front of the omnipresent cameras. It worked--the Ravens made it back to the playoffs the following year. The lesson for business owners here? I'd venture to say HBO isn't going to come in and keep your employees in check unless you happen to be the proprietor of a gentlemen's club. But finding creative ways to challenge your work force isn't a bad takeaway.

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