Understanding the Market’s Needs—Like everything else today, change is constant in most markets and with most customers. What is going on in your market and with your competition? What about your customers—what is their most pressing problem? How do you help with that? Ask them.

Understanding Your Strengths—What are your core competencies? Which skills differentiate you in the market? What is compelling about your products and/or services? Ask people from deep in your organization. Ask your customers.

Finding the Value—If you think of market needs as one circle and your strengths as a second circle—what’s in the overlapping section? This should tell you why people buy from you today. How can you capitalize on this intersection? This should be your focus in the near term. Starting in January, work intensely on this to yield breakthrough performance.

The Nagging Problem of Software Quality

We don’t need to tell you that computers are everywhere now—in our cars, planes, trains, appliances and pockets. The international monetary system and power grid run on software. We also don’t have to tell you that software glitches are all too common and something we are all used to. We love to blame Microsoft for being the biggest sinner, but they are certainly not alone.

In a recent engagement, we dug into this issue in greater detail. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has estimated that software errors cost our nation $59 billion a year due to factors such as lost productivity and longer development times. A solution to software quality problems must include testing, training, the creation of more disciplined work processes, and the use of appropriate tools.

Last year, the Wall Street Journal compared this state of affairs to the U.S. automakers before the Japanese “swept in” with high quality cars. This is also an interesting sidelight to the issue of outsourcing—if we haven’t been able to get it right at home, how is it going to get better in a more dispersed environment? Are we focusing on the right thing?

A summary of the study can be found at the NIST Web site.

Most of the book looks at corporate turnarounds. She makes the statement that in business, a carousel of CEO’s can have little impact whatsoever on a declining or failing organization, until a new leader arrives with a system of profound changes to alter the losing habits. She gives as examples Gillette’s Jim Kilts, who pulled Gillette out of its “doom loop” by abolishing its practices of trade loading (the quarter-end channel stuffing that called for margin-killing discounts that cannibalized the next quarter’s sales), and Continental Airlines’ CEO Gordon Bethune who initiated wholesale changes to reverse a decade of losing with one offer in 1995: $65 to each employee if the airline could rise from last to the top four in on-time arrivals (It only took one quarter).

This is an insightful look at the three conditions for confidence: accountability, collaboration and initiative. For reviews and ordering information about this book, visit Amazon.com.

Just out on the CEO Refresher website, an article we wrote called, “Bombarded by Market Change? Use Fresh Information to Compete and Win.” We make the case that to be successful in the coming years, you must reacquaint yourself with your marketplace and recast your business to fit the new reality. The key starting point for future success is fresh information. Read the Article.