Yes, those books are excellent reads, also "The Southwest Airlines Way" which further chronicles the exploits of Mr Kelleher.
Interestingly, from the Bethune book when he came back to Continental he describes an atmosphere of management mistrust, fear and loathing. He also discribes how CO had made " a pizza so thin that hobody wanted to eat it!" No food on board, not punctual, no frequent flier programme and the staff didn't care. Now, I know CO is a full service operator, but the attititude to it's staff before he got there is remarkably similar to the subject of this topic.
It is no secret that in the UK, the airlines that have the best conditions for their pilots are heavily BALPA airlines, but this thread is not about BALPA as such. The big three I am talking about, VAA, Thomson and BA, all have a significantly better pilot retention rate than we do because the pilots operate in a much better climate where the rosters are more stable, they have better renumeration and the airline therefore does not have to retrain 5 times for each pilot position!!.