1 Are Connie and her staff on the right track to avoid manager mishaps by defining a new set of leader rules and core values and imposing it by fiat from the top down? In their three years at Melbourne's Vreeland Pharmaceuticals, Vitorio Nuños and Gary Shaw had rarely crossed paths, and they had exchanged no more than a dozen sentences. But here they were, seat mates on a plane headed to company headquarters in Sydney. And suddenly, they had a lot to say to each other.

'What I'd like to know is why we're wasting a trip to Sydney to thrash out some new policies about leader competencies,' Vitorio said.

'Because Connie Wyland is HR at Vreeland, and you and I both know that policies and models and all touchy-feely people stuff is the lifeblood of HR,' Gary replied. 'I also think a lot of this is the result of panic on the heels of the scandals in sales last year.'