[asdfman123]

That's because you've misconstrued my argument. My argument is that everything is a tradeoff and while management can be MORE conscious, there's a certain level of bullshit that's inevitable.

But more specifically ICs tend to want to say "if you just let me do what I know is right it would be fine." That's a trade-off, too, though. That solution means a lot of people will be messing around due to no accountability.

[croon]

If the only accountability here is token input/output, after automating that employees would be messing around with no accountability either way.

If setting the actual goal you want to achieve as a manager, and then trusting employees to allocate their focus accordingly, you will absolutely have people faffing off (as likely can't be avoided), but at least those who don't will optimize towards what works according to their actual expertise at least.