"We must reject the idea - well-intentioned, but dead wrong - that the primary path to greatness in the social sectors is to become "more like a business." Most businesses - like most of anything else in life - fall somewhere between mediocre and good. Few are great. When you compare great companies with good ones, many widely practiced business norms turn to correlate with mediocrity, not greatness. So, then, why would we want to import the practises of mediocrity into the social sectors?" - JIM COLLINS

So begins this astonishingly blunt and timely manifesto by leading business thinker Jim Collins. Rejecting the belief, common among politicians, that all would be well in society if only the public sector operated more like the private sector, he sets out a radically new approach to creating successful hospitals, police forces, universities, charities, and other non-profit-making organisations.

In the process he rejects many deep-rooted assumptions: that somehow it's possible to measure social bodies in purely financial terms; that they can be managed like traditional businesses; that they can be transformed simply by throwing money at them. Instead he argues for radical new attitudes and strategies, using the analytical approach and clear thinking that lie at the heart of Good to Great.