Have you recently gone back and reviewed the mistakes you've made—whether it's an investment decision or just the particular way you mishandled a client in the past few months?

Well, maybe you should. Recently, I attended the Fidelity Executive Forum in Orlando, Florida and had the opportunity to hear Jim Murphy, a former fighter pilot-turned-entrepreneur discuss his company's model of a "flawless execution cycle." Murphy, the founder and chief executive officer of management consulting firm, Afterburners, talked about flying $60 million, high-performance F-15 jets for the U.S. Air Force.

When you're flying at 9Gs, you can't ever lose sight of your objective or you will lose control of the flight. That's why you have to have a flawless execution cycle, Murphy explained. The first step is planning; then briefing; then executing; and finally, debriefing. It's that last step that is most important and the one that most companies and individuals neglect, Murphy said.

But the path to success always begins with that first step-planning. Murphy advocated an open planning session with everyone in the room in order to assess the market and the competition. First, determine your objective. Make sure it is clear, measurable, attainable, and supportive of your future goals. That objective could be to increase client referrals by 20% or to produce 10 new prospects per month.

Second, you must identify any threats, which generally means your competition. However, those threats can be internal such as a lack of prospecting tools.

Next, you should identify the lessons learned from prior experiences and then come up with the best ideas. Finalize them and then-at that point-bring in another brainstorming crew to tear the plan apart before you come up with a final strategy. Make sure you know who does what and when and that you can measure the results of your plan. Finally, plan for any contingencies in case something goes wrong.

Take particular care to avoid focusing on one task or problem to the detriment of everything else. Murphy illustrated this situation with a story of an airplane disaster in which the flight crew focused on a burned-out light that indicated that the nose gear wasn't down. All the while, the gear was down and the plane was losing altitude fast. They didn't notice until it was too late. The crew wasn't focused on the right information.

In the case of financial advisors, that all-important indicator is customer service. It could be that you need to learn how to work better with other advisory professionals as Bill Fleming of PricewaterhouseCoopers discusses in "Lessons in Ego Management" on page 66, for our new "Tax Smart" section.

Or perhaps you need to find out how to handle client anxiety. Dr. Denise Federer offers a three-pronged strategy in "Understanding and Guiding Client Behavior" in The Advisor's Emotions on page 69.

In our section, "The Wealthy Retiree," David A. Handler and Alison Lothes from the law firm Kirkland & Ellis, compare two types of trusts for high-net-worth clients in "Incentive Trusts Don't Provide the Best Motivation" on page 80. And, Robert Seaberg, managing director of global wealth planning in Citigroup's Global Wealth Advisory Services, considers the items that are often forgotten to the detriment of clients, in "The 'Other Part' of Retirement Planning," on page 82.

Finally, on page 20, we have photos from our Top Ten Branch Managers Awards dinner, sponsored by MainStay Investments. These are ten leaders whose planning, focus and execution have brought them recognition in a very challenging year.

So, find the time and a place to do a thorough and thoughtful analysis of your business practices and how it affects your clients. Find out what works and what doesn't. Then, fix those mistakes. It will be well worth the introspection.