Adaptability and Cognitive Flexibility in a Team Environment

When we're talking about highly skilled people, you would hope in those situations those people are able to adjust and adapt their approach so that they can navigate their way through those situations. What happens there? I mean, I don't know if that's a question that is big enough to contain the answer to this, but like, what is it that happens to most folks or on average or something when you run into these events that are just truly different than what you've prepared for?