As I understand it, and bearing in mind I'm not super statistics girl: 'For example, in 2008, the high-scoring managers saw less turnover on their teams than t

As I understand it, and bearing in mind I'm not super statistics girl: 'For example, in 2008, the high-scoring managers saw less turnover on their teams than the others did—and retention was related more strongly to manager quality than to seniority, performance, tenure, or promotions. The data also showed a tight connection between managers’ quality and workers’ happiness: Employees with high-scoring bosses consistently reported greater satisfaction in multiple areas, including innovation, work-life balance, and career development.' If their scores predicted those things, then they were measuring something real, regardless of whether they went looking for what they wanted or not. The question then becomes one of whether altering those scores alters the dependent variable or whether you've just created a correlation by doing evil to your numbers. Which... they did look at their results down the line and I'd imagine they'd have looked at turnover, it'd seem really odd not to considering the other things they looked at and the obvious business case for doing so.