The 9-box talent review helps organizations to better understand their employees’ capabilities. Likewise, it provides crucial insights about their developmental needs. As we’ll discuss, this encourages an objective approach to talent management that promotes smart decision-making and fairness. Let’s discuss what this tool entails and how to use it effectively.
Table of Contents
- What Is a 9-Box Talent Review?
- Benefits and Drawbacks of the 9-Box Talent Review
- Understanding the 9-Box Grid
- Utilizing the 9-Box Talent Review in Your Performance Management Process
- Sharing 9-Box Talent Review Results
- Creating an Action Plan to Improve Individual Performance
- FAQs on the 9-Box Talent Review
What Is a 9-Box Talent Review?
The 9-box talent review is a grid with three rows and three columns, which managers use to gauge employees’ performance and potential. This tool acts as a rubric for performance management, guiding decisions on training, support, and promotions.
McKinsey developed the 9-box grid in the 1970s to help General Electric (GE) upgrade its personnel management practices. Initially, it evaluated “industry attractiveness” and “competitive strength,” but the tool’s focus has changed since then.
Today, the 9-box review evaluates employees’ performance and potential. This 3 x 3 matrix provides a quick visual reference for where employees fall within these two key dimensions. The boxes on the horizontal axis measure past performance, while those on the vertical axis assess future potential. The intersection of the two shows where employees currently stand.
Benefits and Drawbacks of the 9-Box Talent Review
Let’s review the main reasons to use the 9-box review. Then, we’ll examine potential drawbacks.
Benefits
Here are a few key benefits of the 9-box talent review.
Enhancing Development
By clarifying employees’ needs, this tool will help match them with the right trainings and resources. It will help you predict which employees are leadership material and what type of support each individual needs. You can pair your rising stars with leadership trainings, while providing supportive coaching to struggling employees.
Ensuring Smart Decision-Making
The 9-box grid provides vital insights for succession-planning and training initiatives. Leaders and HR staff can use the results to map out a succession plan. After determining the best candidates for each advanced position, they can consider how to prepare them for these roles.
Further, they can examine 9-box review results to identify organizational gaps and strengths. They’ll learn whether they have an abundance of high performers, high potentials, or both. If they have few high-potentials, they might need to recruit more future leaders with strategic thinking abilities. If they have numerous moderate performers with high potential, they can focus on training initiatives. In short, they can make strategic investments in all employees’ growth based on the results.
Promoting Fairness
The 9-box grid distills multiple data points into an easily digestible overview of performance and potential. When using a carefully crafted set of standards, it also minimizes bias, ensuring results paint an accurate picture.
Hence, using the 9-box grid can help ensure talent management decisions are grounded in fairness and inclusivity. “The 9-box grid, and related frameworks, allow for consistency and clarity when making decisions, and are a valuable tool in informing further areas for development,” writes Stephen Frost in The Key to Inclusion.
Potential Drawbacks
Like any tool, the 9-box talent review can’t compensate for poor management or deep biases. HR should regularly review managers’ performance to ensure everyone receives equal treatment.
Further, if the organization isn’t following inclusive practices, employees who fit the traditional image of a leader (white, male, and assertive) might be characterized as high performers with high potential simply because they’ve received the most training and sponsorship. After the 9-box review, more training and support might be allocated to them while other employees go without. Avoid this problem by building inclusive training initiatives that all employees are encouraged to participate in. Then, give all employees access to mentorship, stretch projects, and advanced learning opportunities when they’re ready for them.
Understanding the 9-Box Grid
In the 9-box grid, your top performers are the ones who fall into the top right corner. Meanwhile, those who are struggling the most fall into the bottom left corner. In Succession Planning, Christee Atwood assigns the following numbers to each square of the grid:
| Low Performance | Medium Performance | High Performance | |
| High potential | 5 | 2 | 1 |
| Medium potential | 8 | 6 | 3 |
| Low potential | 9 | 7 | 4 |
Let’s now look at what each of these categories signifies.
High Performance/High Potential
These are high performers with high potential—your star employees. They’re your strategic thinkers, problem-solvers, and future leaders, as Atwood asserts. They’re ready, or almost ready, for advancement.
High Performance/Moderate Potential
These employees may feel content in their current role, not feeling the ambition to aim higher. Or, they might have neglected their own development, not cultivating the skill set for a next-level role. Meanwhile, some might have the potential to make a lateral move. Talk with these employees about their career aspirations, so you don’t miss an opportunity to nurture their growth.
High Performance/Low Potential
These employees are great at their current job. They can make good teachers, as Atwood notes. If they enjoy their role and don’t aim to advance, focus on praising their great performance and enlisting their help in coaching others.
Medium Performance/High Potential
With the right training and support, these employees could grow substantially. They may lack motivation or suffer from imposter syndrome. Focus on engaging them, connecting them with their strengths, offering relevant trainings, and mentoring them as they pursue stretch projects.
Medium Performance/Medium Potential
These employees display competence in their current role but aren’t reaching more ambitious goals. They aren’t actively preparing for advanced opportunities or striving for higher KPIs. However, their intelligence, creativity, or innate capability suggests they could handle more advanced responsibilities with the right training and motivation.
Medium Performance/Low Potential
These employees have reached a moderate level of effectiveness in their current role. However, they are not reaching higher-level goals or going beyond expectations. They need a great deal of training and coaching before they’ll be ready to advance. Talk with them about their career ambitions in case a lateral move would be more appealing to them.
Low Performance/High Potential
These employees are capable of doing much more than they’re currently doing. They may lack confidence or motivation, not recognizing their own intelligence or creativity. They may suffer from imposter syndrome and need strong mentoring and training in order to develop and leverage their strengths.
Low Performance/Medium Potential
Employees in this group urgently need a personal development plan. They are capable of improving in their current role but may need to be re-engaged and actively coached on a daily basis. They could also be suffering from burnout or poor role fit.
Low Performance/Low Potential
These employees need the most coaching and support to improve. They struggle to achieve KPIs and meet expectations. Their presence on a team could even bring down morale. They could be better off in another role or at a lower level; reconsider their fit for their current position.
Utilizing the 9-Box Talent Review in Your Performance Management Process
Follow these steps to use the 9-box grid effectively.
Designing a Rubric
Establish clear metrics for each box of the 9-box grid. These standards will create a consistent way to evaluate employees, promoting fairness. A clear narrative description for each point on the grid will also serve as a template for writing your 9-box review for each employee.
Completing Individual 9-Box Talent Reviews
Managers can complete a 9-box talent review before each performance review. When using this tool across review cycles, they can also look at patterns. If moderate performers have become lower performers, consider what has influenced this shift. Or, if moderate potentials have become high-potentials, identify what you’ve done well. Then, you can leverage these lessons in the future.
Drawing from Data
To enhance accuracy, refer to performance management data when completing the 9-box review. Encourage managers to look at progress toward goals, reflecting on objectives and key results (OKRs). Performance management software will provide solid analytics to draw from. Look at hard data like sales completed, leads generated, and project outcomes.
Writing a Brief Description
Using your 9-box grid template, write a succinct summary of where a given employee stands. Refer to the standards for the box that best fits this employee. Then personalize the description to reflect their performance and potential.
Making Talent Management Decisions
Based on the 9-box talent review, consider these questions:
- Is the employee ready for an advanced role?
- Might the employee be ready for an advanced role with more training? If so, what type of role, and what training is needed?
- Is the employee ill-suited to the current role?
Some employees may be ready for a stretch project, while your highest performers may be ready for a promotion. The 9-box review can also help you avoid a “role mismatch,” as Jack Kelly writes on Forbes. For example, say an employee functions well as an individual performer, but his interpersonal skills are lacking. You can avoid promoting him to a leadership position (unless he modifies his behaviour), keeping him in a role where he thrives.
Assessing Team Capabilities
To inform talent development decisions, some managers then arrange all of their employees into a single 9-box grid. This provides a bird’s eye view of what type of development their team needs. This is done strictly for the manager’s use and shouldn’t be presented to employees. Over time, the manager can also assess her own effectiveness by observing whether the majority of employees gravitate toward high and moderate squares.
Sharing 9-Box Talent Review Results
Use the 9-box review results to inform your performance evaluation conversation. You don’t necessarily need to share the grid itself, and never share the results publicly. Rather, use the description you write in your 9-box review as a springboard for creating a personal development plan.
If an employee is falling short of expectations, emphasize that you believe in their ability to improve. Refer to core strengths that demonstrate their capabilities. Be empathetic if the employee feels surprised by your evaluation of her performance. Focus on creating a pathway forward, not dwelling on undesired results.
Creating an Action Plan to Improve Individual Performance
Sit down with each employee to design a plan for growth, discussing the following points:
- Areas where they’re struggling, and why. Talk about solutions to these challenges.
- What they find meaningful in their work, and what they enjoy. Look for ways to let them do more of what energizes them.
- Strengths they possess, and abilities they’re working to grow. Discuss ways to leverage these strengths more fully.
- Career ambitions. Ask where they’d like to be in their career in three years. Explore next steps for getting there.
Then, assign stretch projects to employees who are competent in their roles. Connect the employee with vital support to ensure their success. For example, a first-time project leader could take part in a leadership seminar and meet regularly with a mentor.
For struggling employees, consider reassigning their role if it’s not a good fit. Otherwise, provide daily feedback and coaching to help them get up to speed. Regular support in overcoming challenges, engaging learning opportunities, and meaningful work may strengthen their performance.
FAQs on the 9-Box Talent Review
Here are a couple of commonly asked questions on the 9-box talent review, and our answers to them.
Does the 9-box grid need to have 9 boxes?
The grid should have an equal number of vertical and horizontal columns. A 9-box grid is simple and approachable, while a grid with numerous columns could become unwieldy. But it is possible to add an extra column or two on each axis if you’d like.
Does a 9-box talent review really provide an objective look at performance?
The process is still somewhat subjective, but so is every performance review. This tool enhances objectivity by relying on concrete data and well-defined standards. While no performance review method is flawless, this enhances the objectivity of the process.
For a more comprehensive approach, use other forms of evaluation as well, like 360 reviews, which provide feedback from a range of colleagues. Leveraging multiple talent management tools will give you the best available data to inform your personnel development processes.
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