The 9-box grid in Excel

The 9-box grid (sometimes called the 9-box talent grid or the McKinsey 9-box matrix) is an old McKinsey exercise where you score people on two things, their performance and their potential. It maps every person on a team against two questions: how are they performing today, and how much potential do they have to grow?

Each axis is split into three bands (low, medium, and high), which produces a 3×3 grid of nine boxes. The horizontal axis usually carries performance and the vertical axis carries potential, though plenty of teams flip them. Where the two scores intersect is the box a person lands in, and each box implies a recommended action, anything from coaching to development, retention, a stretch assignment, or a promotion.

The value isn't the grid itself, it's the conversation it forces. Instead of vague impressions, managers have to place each person deliberately and defend that placement against the same criteria everyone else used. It's not rocket science, but in my experience it does help people avoid getting locked into one perspective when they look at potential leaders. That's why it shows up in talent reviews, calibration sessions, and succession planning at companies of every size.

HR is a really tricky kind of data to work with. It's heavily impacted by our own biases and the decisions that come out of it hit people right where they live, their pay, their promotions, whether they feel like they've got a future somewhere. Just the idea of putting a score on someone's "potential" can be wildly problematic if you do it without a ton of forethought.

And even "performance," which seems like a measurable metric, isn't really that cut and dry. The person who's missing their target might be the exact reason three other people are hitting theirs. That's not me saying we shouldn't set goals or measure anything. It's me saying that everyone needs to be a lot more aware of the limits of the data they use to measure people.