Letters

Published: 07/03/2002, Volume II2, No. 5795 Page 23

Your reviewer, Steve O'Neill, missed the middle of the Tom Peters' trilogy - A Passion for Excellence (books, 14 February).

Peters once said that his first book was encouraging managers to fail, his second book was asking them to fail more often, and his third book was demanding that they fail bigger.

Learning from failure is, he believes, the route to excellence.

Managers in the health service may or may not find this challenging.

If Tom Peters looked at some of the ways the NHS is currently involving patients, he might use another of his favourite phrases: 'advanced lip service'.

Paul Vittles Managing director RBA Research Leeds