What happens with the mice provides evidence which forces the researchers to update their models, possibly changing the optimal course of action, or fail. The literal meaning "The mice provide evidence, forcing us to update our models, making us, in order to do our job correctly, change our decisions." may be expressed metaphorically as "The mice make decisions on how to do our job correctly" or "The mice are the real boss."

Well, except that the researchers could:

a) Ignore the evidence
b) Fudge or outright falsify the evidence (horribly unethical, but it happens)
c) Abandon the experiments and do something else
etc.

and deciding to do any of these things is influenced heavily by what your boss does (i.e. what rules and incentives exist in your organization).

I do get the point made by wylram in the other subthread (communicating to your boss that one cannot change reality by managerial fiat), and it's a good point, I just don't find that it's conveyed well by the original quote (or even the source article). The key issue here, for me, is that despite the fact that "the mice" (but really more like "the laws of reality") are what determine the outcome of the experiment, not your boss, that does not mean that said laws of reality, much less said mice, in any way supplant your boss as the agent who is in control of your career advancement, position in the company, etc. (Incidentally, that is why the vizier / figurehead analogy does not hold.)