What do you do when you’ve made a mistake and let your team members down? Many of us might give in to disgust or self-recrimination, but in a playoff game this year, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce showed how quick thinking and adaptability can make up for even a bad screwup.
If you’re founder or other business leader, you should keep it’s a great lesson to remember for the inevitable moment when you have a screwup of your own.
Kelce, who’s perhaps best known for his romantic relationship with Taylor Swift, co-hosts a podcast with his elder brother, former Philadelphia Eagle Jason Kelce. The show often includes a segment called Teach Tape, in which they go over the video of a play in detail, sharing their extensive knowledge about what’s going on on the gridiron. In last week’s episode, the brothers took a close look at one of Travis’s catches from the Chiefs’ playoff game against the Baltimore Ravens in January. The unlikely catch has been called “UNREAL” on YouTube–and it helped Kelce set a new record for most off-season catches. It’s worth watching the 21-second play to see Kelce leap sideways away from a defender and catch the ball a moment before falling to the ground.
It was a much-admired catch, and a fan of the show sent a video clip to the brothers to ask them to analyze it. Kelce’s comment? “This is me being an absolute idiot and just being in the right place at the right time.”
He went on to explain that the original play had a “kill” option in it. Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes had called two plays in the huddle–a first play, and then a second play that he might switch to if conditions looked right, using a secret signal to tell the other team members about the changed plan.
Mahomes did indeed decide to change the play, and he gave the signal, but Kelce missed it. “I was thinking it was a different play,” he said.
Springing loose at the last second.
Mahomes dropped back, and with the defenders blocked, he had ample opportunity to throw the ball–except that Kelce was in a completely different part of the field from where he was supposed to be. But then he locked eyes with Mahomes and realized he’d made a mistake. “You’re like, ‘Oh shit! He needs me,'” Kelce recalled. “So I started running around and right at the last second, before Pat got his knees chopped out from under him, I kind of spring loose, or at least get between my man and Pat so I can kind of box him out for the catch.”
It helped, the brothers noted, that the Raven covering Kelce had his back to Mahomes for a moment, giving the quarterback a brief opportunity to throw the ball when the man blocking Kelce wasn’t watching. “Defender’s back to [Mahomes] and my eyes on him–I think that’s an advantage, especially with a guy with an arm like Pat or any of the really good quarterbacks they can just place it,” Kelce said.
Because of Kelce’s mistake, this was now a broken play, the brothers noted, meaning the players had no choice but to improvise. That requires a completely change of mindset. “As a scrambler, as a guy with a broke-down play, it becomes more like backyard football,” Kelce explained. “I knew that I screwed the play up initially. So I’m kind of just feeling out where everybody is. Pat kind of starts to get on the run. It’s like, all right, just let me give him somewhere to throw the ball.”
Rather than get sidetracked by his mistake, Kelce instantly switched to a different mode of play that still allowed him to deliver a first down. It’s a great reminder that, when plans fall apart as they sometimes do, being able to adapt on the fly can mean the difference between failure and success.
There’s a growing audience of Inc.com readers who receive a daily text from me with a self-care or motivational micro-challenge or tip. Often, they text me back and we wind up in a conversation. (Want to learn more? Here’s some information about the texts and a special invitation to a two-month free trial.) Many are entrepreneurs or business leaders who have had to change courses at one time or another, either because circumstances changed or because–like Kelce–they had gone in the wrong direction. In that situation, knowing how improvise well can make all the difference.
