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The Super Bowl victory of the New Orleans Saints over the Indianapolis Colts offers some lessons we can all apply about how individuals, teams, and corporations create success from adversity.

As has been widely written in 2005, following the destruction of Hurricane Katrina there was some momentary consideration given to moving the Saints team away from New Orleans into a more lucrative franchise city. Instead, the owners chose to recommit to the city and the players took on a mission of engaging with it, becoming a symbol for its rebuilding.

Drew Brees coincidentally was in a similar state of disrepair, having badly damaged his shoulder in the last game of the 2005 season. San Diego refused to offer him a contract commensurable with his record, and Miami dropped out of the bidding over concerns with his ability to come back from his injury. By the beginning of 2006 the team, the city, and the quarterback began to rebuild together.

There is a lot that goes into making a Super Bowl team, but the team that took the field yesterday, underdogs against the Peyton Manning-led Colts, seemed to have been forged from a different metal. They played at their peak, took chances that defied football history, and in many ways they dominated a game in which many thought they would not be able to compete. This is not a story of breaks, calls that went their way, or the other team falling apart. This is the story of a team that was playing for something beyond themselves. Each player was involved in their city, had made a commitment to New Orleans, and in so doing, were committed to each other.

According to Peter King writing in Sports Illustrated, Brees is "an athlete as adored and appreciated as any in an American city today." They made a commitment and took risks, I suspect, because they had seen the potential to rise from devastation that few others have witnessed. They formed a unit and worked as a team because rebuilding a city requires that kind of effort. The team took the field with a sense of higher purpose, of representing themselves, their families, their team, and the city that they had supported, and that had supported them. And together this drove them to combine their skills, under the leadership of Sean Payton and Drew Brees, to work together in ways that led to a dominating year, and ultimately a Super Bowl victory.

We should see the story of the Saints not as an allegory, but as an example of how crisis can forge greatness. How many companies responded to the financial crisis by cutting jobs, cutting back, and being defensive? There will be companies that will find opportunities and grow. But there is even greater potential to be mined. For those companies that see the crisis as an opportunity to find a greater purpose in their work, they will find rewards in a team that unites in ways that are only possibly in times like these. They will find the opportunity to engage with their customers in a uniquely collaborative way. And they will create a long term, sustainable competitive advantage over their peers. It doesn't pay back overnight. But when it does, the reward is greater than short term gain. It can transform lives as well as bottom lines.

To see the potential, watch the results as New Orleans celebrates their victory.