Are your people in the right places?
Assess your team on performance and potential, and get a clear map and a next move for every person.
The nine-box is the most widely used talent tool in the world, and the most abused. Done on a whiteboard with gut ratings and no follow-through, it becomes a labelling exercise that does more harm than good.
This version is built to be rigorous: anchored scales, evidence per placement, a check on assumed ambition, and a recommended move for every person. A leader's private thinking aid, not a verdict.
Set up Nine-Box Grid →
At its best, the nine-box is a conversation.
You carry a rough map of your team in your head. Who is flying, who is coasting, who could do far more than their role asks of them. But it lives on instinct, it shifts with the day, and you have never really tested it.
Done properly, that map gets tested. Each person weighed on their own merits, with a reason you can say out loud for where they sit, so you can see who is ready to rise and has the appetite for it, and who is thriving right where they are. You come away with a picture of the team you can stand behind.
That's really what the grid is for: a prompt for the honest, evidenced discussion you would otherwise keep putting off. The real value shows up afterwards, when everyone leaves with a clear next step and someone owning it. And because it is only a snapshot of today, you revisit it as people grow, which is usually when the interesting shifts happen.
Two axes, nine boxes.
Every person is placed on two anchored scales, and where the two readings meet is their box. Potential is the half people get wrong, so it is defined rather than assumed.
Three steps, your own private thinking aid.
The process is designed to replace gut ratings. You place each person against defined scales for performance and potential, backed by a specific example and a prompt to check if you've had a real developmental conversation.
- 1Place your peopleRate each person on two anchored scales, with an example. Up to 6, free.
- 2Get the gridIt comes back the moment you finish, with a headline move for everyone.
- 3Work it privatelyUse it as a thinking aid for you as the leader. The label is a working note for you. What people should hear is the next step, and why.
What is this person's capacity and desire to grow into a role of greater scope, complexity or impact?
Every person placed, with a move.
See the grid the moment you finish, with analysis and next steps.
Three of your team sit in the same box. Your bench is thinner than it looks, and one of them is a flight risk.
Pricing
Grid, Free
- Plot up to 6 of your team
- The grid laid out, with each person placed
- A headline summary of the shape of your team
- Top-level next steps
Grid, Pro
- Plot up to twenty of your team
- Anchored scales for performance and potential
- A pattern analysis across the whole team
- A next step for every person, and a facilitation guide
Fifty years on, it still earns its place.
The nine-box grid is a simple but powerful talent-management tool. It plots employees on a 3x3 matrix, with current performance on one axis, future potential on the other, producing nine boxes that each suggest a clear development or succession action. It traces back to the GE-McKinsey nine-box matrix that McKinsey built for General Electric in the early 1970s to prioritise investment across its business units, and HR later adapted the same logic to people.
Used well, its value is substantial. It gives leaders a shared language and a consistent standard for talent reviews, turning ad-hoc, single-manager judgements into structured, evidence-based discussions. It systematically identifies high-potential talent and ready-now successors, strengthening the leadership pipeline and reducing reliance on costly external hires. It focuses finite development budgets where they generate the most return, with tailored actions for each box.
By separating performance from potential, it counters the classic error of assuming today's strong performer is tomorrow's leader. And where ratings are calibrated across managers rather than left to one, they become measurably more consistent from one manager to the next. Its visual simplicity means an entire team's talent landscape can be understood at a glance, which is why the tool has endured for over fifty years.
The key is execution: clear criteria, multiple data sources, honest calibration, and real follow-through. As practitioners put it, “it's not about the boxes”, it's about the quality of the conversation the grid enables.
The things worth checking before you start.
It does something few talent tools manage: it separates how someone is performing now from how far they could go, and puts a whole team on a single page. It has been in use since the early 1970s, and it is still what most talent reviews reach for.
Both scales are anchored, so you rate against defined levels rather than a feeling. Every placement asks for a specific example. Potential is defined as a composite of aspiration, ability and engagement, and the tool makes you confirm you have actually asked what someone wants. You come away with a move for every person and a guide for running the conversation.
Not unless you show them. The grid is private to you: nothing is sent to the people you place, and the tool never shows anyone their own box. What you share afterwards is your call. Most leaders give someone the next step rather than the rating behind it.
A summary of where they sit and a specific next move, grounded in what their box really means. It is built to open a development conversation.
It stays yours. Your placements are private to you and never shared with the people you plot. Ask us to delete everything and we will.
A 30-minute one-to-one session included in the price of Grid, Pro, worth £95. You run the grid first, then work through it with a team coach: where the pattern is thin, who to move, and how to have the conversation. The session is for you as the leader.