Acknowledgements. Series editor's foreword. 1. Becoming and being an effective manager: Essential skills and more. 2. Managing yourself and managing others: Never enough time in the day. 3. Everything's changed but what's different? Skills for managing change. 4. Recruiting and selection: Getting the right colleagues and striving towards happiness. 5. Managing meetings: Being a smooth operator. 6. Skills in collaboration and networking: Building up successful partnerships for service user involvement. 7. What about the tricky bits? Skilful negotiation and conflict management. 8. Effective mentoring and coaching: Skills in developing others. Appendices. Contributors' information. References.