I would disagree in that the author self admits he was a noob manager and observationally its not unusual for noob managers to focus very hard to what they can easily measure (butts in seat, timeclock hours, length of lunch...) because they haven't developed a skill of focusing on getting stuff they don't understand, done. I've had extremely weird conversations with new managers, they really can't evaluate anything outside of their old small picture beyond did you show up and are you in a good mood? For a few months an inexperienced noob sadly has nothing intelligent to say beyond "how bout that extra long lunch last thursday?". People pick up on the weirdness of adding trivia to the discussion but fail to notice the subtraction of all meat from the conversation, its all "he's so picky about calling in sick" not the equally true "holy cow I screwed up process 34B last week and expected to get called on the carpet about it, but all this guy talks about is sick days". As a corollary, if you're going to try something new that may explode, do it with a new boss, because if it explodes all he's going to understand is your timeclock hours and if you smile a lot, so you're off the hook.
Sometimes its a negative result of excessive stress or unrealistic goals. Bosses boss says do this two week in one week, boss says OK, inevitable fail, called on carpet, well dev A was sick with flu and dev B was five minutes late to work (LOL as if that matters). Next week the boom falls on sick days and being five minutes late. Sometimes bosses boss knows this is a stupid tactic and hopes the noob boss has a learning experience. I had a bosses boss who actually did that to me. I thought he was a complete ass for doing it, but punishing my guys was an effective way of stopping me from making dumb excuses in the future, so I haven't done that in 20+ years, at least not knowingly.
On a few rare occasions I've seen it as very poor communications. "Must be done before Tuesday" so nobody works on it over the weekend, when inexperienced boss really meant "Must be done ASAP like right now even if it is 2am on Saturday". Noob bosses need to learn to communicate. If you need all direct reports to show up for the staff meeting once a month with your boss on Wednesdays don't talk down to the employees and tell them to all show up at 8am every morning when they only really have to on rare occasion.
I've also seen incompetent middle managers enforce it on lower level managers to avoid certain discussions, as a punishment, essentially. I want someone else to take your job, so your direct reports are going to be screwed over until you fail and you are replaced. Or to appear more active and in touch, "I'm not just a pencil pushing idiot I have a really great plan to track who's late from lunch because I care because my eval says I need to care more, therefore you will support my dumb idea". Often there is nothing the lower level manager can do to improve those situations.
The above are personal anecdotes I've experienced in forays into lower level management. Other, perhaps better examples, do exist.
Sometimes its a negative result of excessive stress or unrealistic goals. Bosses boss says do this two week in one week, boss says OK, inevitable fail, called on carpet, well dev A was sick with flu and dev B was five minutes late to work (LOL as if that matters). Next week the boom falls on sick days and being five minutes late. Sometimes bosses boss knows this is a stupid tactic and hopes the noob boss has a learning experience. I had a bosses boss who actually did that to me. I thought he was a complete ass for doing it, but punishing my guys was an effective way of stopping me from making dumb excuses in the future, so I haven't done that in 20+ years, at least not knowingly.
On a few rare occasions I've seen it as very poor communications. "Must be done before Tuesday" so nobody works on it over the weekend, when inexperienced boss really meant "Must be done ASAP like right now even if it is 2am on Saturday". Noob bosses need to learn to communicate. If you need all direct reports to show up for the staff meeting once a month with your boss on Wednesdays don't talk down to the employees and tell them to all show up at 8am every morning when they only really have to on rare occasion.
I've also seen incompetent middle managers enforce it on lower level managers to avoid certain discussions, as a punishment, essentially. I want someone else to take your job, so your direct reports are going to be screwed over until you fail and you are replaced. Or to appear more active and in touch, "I'm not just a pencil pushing idiot I have a really great plan to track who's late from lunch because I care because my eval says I need to care more, therefore you will support my dumb idea". Often there is nothing the lower level manager can do to improve those situations.
The above are personal anecdotes I've experienced in forays into lower level management. Other, perhaps better examples, do exist.