A while back we discussed the lingering cultural influence of Tom Wolfe’s classic book about the original seven Mercury astronauts, The Right Stuff. (Missed it? Don’t despair. Catch it here.)

The Right Stuff is the literary gift that keeps on giving – and Philip Kaufman’s astonishing, delightful movie made from the book is the same on the cinematic side.

Just yesterday someone used the phrase “pushing the envelope” to describe something in the news, probably the ongoing Brett Kavanaugh confirmation drama. No one said anything or anyone was pushing the envelope prior to The Right Stuff, and now millions throw it around like it’s been here since the Anglo-Saxon, without knowing anything of the amazing book that introduced it into the lexicon.

Similarly, every space movie I’ve seen since The Right Stuff, from Hidden Figures to The Martian, has quoted that movie’s unique style and pace – and if the trailer for First Man is any indication, they’re doing it again.

I could go on about my favorite book-movie combination, but I want to bring over another leitmotif from the book into marketing, where it can really do some damage.

It’s not the most delicate term, so I’m only going to use it once and then refer to it obliquely after that. It’s called “screwing the pooch,” and it’s astronaut-speak for really messing up.

Now sometimes, as described hilariously in the book, the “pooch” is “unscrewable,” meaning that no matter how hard you try – and Gus Grissom tried very, very hard – you’re still going to come up aces.

Most of the time, though, the pooch is extremely vulnerable, and in business, marketing – and you specifically – is too often blamed for the violation.

It’s hard when you’re caught between the need to defend yourself and the desire to move the process forward, like a good marketer should. Here are some of the best ways I’ve found to attack this situation.

Determine culpability, but don’t dwell on culpability

Everyone’s first reaction when they’ve been accused of something, rightly or wrongly, is to lay blame. Something went wrong, and someone is directly responsible.

Sorry; it’s not always that black-and-white. Often there’s a causal chain of culpability, and many people play a part. Sometimes the train is pointed in the wrong direction from the start, and upper management is responsible – though they may have valid political reasons for their decision.

To the extent that what’s done is done, your pointing fingers is probably not going to be helpful. Furthermore, marketing is largely about determining what’s broken and devising ways to fix it. Regardless of who broke it, the crucial job is repair – not kvetching or patching, but rebuilding for the long run.

So go ahead, do the report and get to the bottom of things. Just realize that’s the start of the process, not the end.

Research

Sure, it’s self-serving for a research firm to be touting research, but research is one of the best possible responses to a business crisis, because in times of screw-up, research can tell you two crucial things: the impact of the error and the best ways to fix it.

Let’s take a common example: the social-media faux pas. Someone on your social-media team was screwing around and posted something highly improper and demeaning on one of your accounts. He quickly realized and corrected the error, but not before thousands of people were exposed to the message.

Honest mistake, to be sure, and while the incident points up some structural things to be corrected, the more important task is determining what this has done to your brand and image.

And here’s where a 360-degree approach to research-based customer experience really pays off.

You’re going to want to know two things: What’s the short-term impact of this mistake, and what long-term implications might it have?

You should approach these questions from multiple angles:

Get your sales team on the phone to your customers with a script that doesn’t call attention to the incident but gauges key attitudes toward your brand … and gives them another opportunity to get in front of the customer and sell.
Crank up a long-term sales-monitoring program that dives into every dimension of your sales, from prospect attitudes and outcomes to sales-call volume.
The No. 1 asset your organization has is repeat customers who will recommend you to others unprompted. Focus on them; make sure they’re solid with you. Maybe this is a time to reward them with a little gesture of appreciation.
This is also the time to put your No. 1 internal asset, your customer-service team, on red alert. Create forms and scripts for them to systematically capture qualitative data. This is also a great opportunity to incent them (more, hopefully) for above-and-beyond performance.
Go back to your social-media channels and amp up the monitoring. Dive into individual posts while simultaneously reviewing your macro social trends.
Follow the same process with your SEO.
Prepare some “flash” surveys to be emailed in two batches: one immediately and one at a later interval – somewhere between two and six weeks.
Construct all your surveys and scripts with a remedy in mind. Don’t supply the remedy; ask your customers and followers to supply it for you. The idea is to determine the extent of the damage and suggest ways to repair it.

Turn research into action

This was spoiled by 8) above, but the only good reason to do research is so you can act more intelligently. Well-constructed research lays out a road map of what to do next.

To that end, build your research so it can function as a springboard for action. Realize before you start that you’re going to need to analyze and parse all your questions, responses, and datasets.

Nothing is more frustrating in times of trial than realizing the research that was supposed to save your bacon is useless, because it didn’t ask the right people the right questions in the right ways.

Leverage the residual effects

You can turn dung into diamonds in these situations – not only by taking a research-based response to a crisis, but by what you learn about your customers in the process.

Well-constructed crisis research can not only show you how to fix a crisis, it can delineate what’s important to the customers and followers that are most crucial to your organization’s success.

Given that, a research-based crisis response should have two components:

A detailed short-term action plan for repairing the damage; and
A long-term plan for cultivating and nurturing your key audiences.

No one likes it when the pooch is messed with – least of all the pooch. But you can and absolutely should turn it into an opportunity to know your audiences better … and be more effective in the process.

Now that’s the right stuff.

The Right Stuff: 4 Ways To Research Your Way Out Of A Crisis