Actually I knowe Sue Heron (wonder if she still has the main coon cat?) and we are in furious agreement about this and certain other matters. I've posted before about Board and executive time horizons. Boards should be looking five to ten years out, CEO's maybe slightly shorter and so on down the management and employee tree.
If this does not happen, you get awful results, awful as in;
(1) CEO thinking about maximising next years bonus and deferring difficult and expensive decisions. The result? After he (she) leaves, the skeletons literally jump out of the closet.
(2) Engineers, Pilots and Cabin crew worrying about their long term future instead of concentrating on the matter immediately to hand. The result? Well the very least is a spilled cup of coffee.
There is another dimension to this that has not been brought out by AIM, Sue or anyone else. One of the theories of management that has been around for a long time is about dealing with uncertainty. This basically states that its managements function to deal with uncertainty - and the higher (lower) you go the more uncertainty you have to deal with in order to provide a stable, certain, risk free environment for your employees.
Now Qantas management fails this test too. Mr. D has a contract that guarantees his financial security for life, come what may. He is entirely insulated from financial risk. At the same time, he has deliberately destabilised all his employees expectations regarding their own financial security let alone their employment. In other words the levels of risk within the airline have been reversed. Without wanting to point out the bleeding obvious and get banned, it is not a good idea for an engineer or pilot (or CC) to be worrying about their finances or job prospects while they are supposed to be doing their jobs.