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9-Box Grid

Place people on a performance/potential grid, keep the calibration notes beside each box, and export the review pack.

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Performance
High potential
Enigma3
    High potential6
      Star9
        Could grow
        Inconsistent2
          Core player4
            Strong performer6
              At their level
              Underperforming1
                Effective2
                  Trusted professional3
                    PotentialBelow expectationsMeets expectationsExceeds expectations

                    0 entries, 0 of them scored. Highest score on the grid: 0.

                    What this grid is telling you

                    • Nothing on the grid yet. Write the entries down first and score them afterwards.

                    Frequently asked questions

                    The questions people actually ask about this document.

                    What is a 9-box grid?
                    A three by three grid that plots how somebody is performing against how much further they could go. The nine cells have names, and the names are the point: the conversation about a strong performer who is content where they are is a completely different conversation from the one about somebody whose potential this role is not showing, and without the grid both get called good.
                    What is the difference between performance and potential?
                    Performance is what has happened: results, against what the role asked for, over a period you can name. Potential is a prediction about a larger or different role. Conflating them is the usual error, and it runs in one direction: strong performance gets read as potential, and the organisation promotes its best specialist into a job nobody asked whether they wanted.
                    Why does everyone end up in the middle box?
                    Partly because most people genuinely are solid performers in roles that fit them, and that is not a failure. Partly because the middle is comfortable and the edges require a conversation. The test is whether anyone moved since last time: a grid identical to last year's is a grid nobody argued over, and the argument is where the value is.
                    Should people be told where they sit?
                    Tell them the substance, not the label. Nobody is helped by hearing they are an enigma, and a leaked grid with names in boxes does lasting damage. What people can use is the finding underneath it: that you think they could do more than this role asks, or that the last two quarters have not worked. Say that, and keep the grid as the calibration tool it is.
                    What about the bottom-left box?
                    It is the one the grid exists to stop you avoiding. Somebody has been in that box for two review cycles only because nobody wanted the conversation, and a third cycle is a decision taken by default. Either a plan with dates and support, or an honest conclusion that the role is not right. The grid does not make that easier; it makes it visible.
                    How often should it be redone?
                    Once or twice a year, attached to a review cycle that already exists. More often than that and you are measuring noise, because potential does not change quarterly. Less often and the actions agreed against each box never get checked, which is the thing that turns the whole exercise into a slide.

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