First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently

by Marcus Buckingham

productivity,

How was "productivity" defined and measured?

the most consistent links (ten of the twelve questions)

Questionable presentation, as the questions were chosen for their correlation.

Here the employees will tolerate ambiguity,

Sounds reasonable, but how was this conclusion drawn?

Stores scoring in the top 25 percent on the employee opinion survey were, on average, 4.56 percent over their sales budget for the year, while those scoring in the bottom 25 percent were 0.84 percent below budget.

Cause or effect (or even coincidence)? What if the less profitable locations were due to factors out of their control, like location? And managers and employees are less happy when there sales are not as good?

Similarly, a nationwide trucking company reports that their average drivers cover 125,000 miles per year and suffer four accidents per year — yet one of their best drivers has just celebrated his four millionth mile of accident-free driving.

So? There will always be a range and there will always be outliers. This has as much fanaticism and preachiness as you'll find anywhere. Although the premise of the book is backed by a lot of data, the conclusions and connections drawn are often distant or even quasi-science.

Many managers can frequently be seduced by the idea that there is “one best way” and that it can be taught. Thus they dispatch the salesperson to learn the ten secrets of effective negotiation and then evaluate him based upon how closely he followed the required steps. They send the budding executive off to acquire the twenty competencies of successful leadership and then grade him on his ability to demonstrate each and every one. And, with the best of intentions, they encourage every employee to develop the nine habits for effective living.

No, we send them to these trainings because we know that people will generally be/become better when equipped with more knowledge and tools

“If I give these people the chance to make choices, many of them will use that freedom to make the wrong choices.”

Therein lies the dilemma: how much of wrong choices are you willing to tolerate? (risk-reward)