The Swing Route

My wife and I watched the new Netflix movie Lonely Planet, starring Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth the other night.  Dern plays a novelist, Katherine, who is struggling to write her next book, so she travels overseas to Morocco to a writer's retreat to "get away" and move past her writer's block.  Hemsworth's character, Owen, happens to be attending with his girlfriend, who is an up and coming novelist in her own right.  Katherine and Owen end up spending a day together on a sightseeing tour, and they end up falling in love.  As my father-in-law used to say, "It's a classic love story.  Boy meets girl.  Boy and girl fall in love.  Boy and girl break up.  Boy and girl fall back in love."

Katherine ends up with a new book and a new partner.  She names her book after something that Owen had related to her from his high school football days, which essentially describes their relationship.  He mentions the swing route in a conversation at the beach, stating that it is a route that football teams use when things aren't going their way.  He goes on to say that the play depends heavily upon the quarterback's ability to trust his instincts, make a quick decision, and follow through.  As Owen puts it, the swing route is all about "finding hope in a big mess" (which again, describes what the two have been going through in their personal lives).

Of course my wife noticed that I was looking up "swing route" on the Internet during the movie.  She asked, "Is this going to find it's way into an upcoming blog post?"  Yes it will and yes it has!  As luck would have it, someone else beat me to the punch (see Aval Sethi's LinkedIn post, "The swing route in football and leadership: Trusting your instincts amid chaos").

If you aren't familiar with it, the swing route is exactly as the character Owen described it in the movie.  It's one of the most effective ways to turn a broken play with a potential loss of yardage into a big gain.  During the swing route, the running back moves out of the backfield and toward the sideline, catches a short pass, and quickly turns upfield (check out a video describing the swing route here).  It's a great option for the quarterback when all the other potential receivers aren't open.

The swing route is a perfect analogy to describe the kind of leadership that is required to thrive in today's VUCA environment.  The leadership "swing route" is necessary when things aren't progressing according to plan, or even worse the carefully laid-out plan is falling apart.  Leaders can and should use the "swing route" when they need to pivot and re-establish momentum.  Going back to the football analogy, leaders use the "swing route" to make something out of nothing or generate small wins (i.e., turn a loss into a gain).  And just as in football, there are a couple of keys to achieving success with the "swing route".  First, leaders need to learn to trust their instinct and make quick decisions, even with imperfect information.  Second, leaders need to trust their teams (the football equivalent of trusting that the running back will be in the flat to catch the ball when it's thrown).  Third, and perhaps most importantly, the "swing route" requires flexibility, adaptability, and a little creativity.